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Biltong


colig08
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Well I had a canada goose which rather than chuck in the dead pit at work I thought I'd give it a go at turning it into Biltong.

 

Having removed the breast I cut it into 10-15mm thick steaks.

I placed about a table spoon each of; sugar, fresh ground black pepper, ground coriander, smoked praprika, salt, 4 crushed garlic cloves and 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar in a freezer bag, the goose was added, bag sealed and shaken.

I left the bag in the fridge over night .

The goose was quickly rinsed under the tap then patted dry before being lightly brushed with cider vinegar.

Not owning a special Biltong box, I carefully wired a wire cake cooling rack high above my stove where it probably reaches no higher than 30 centigrade and laid the goose steaks out flat on it.

Within 2hrs the meat was dry on the out side, 3 days later, with the stove lite for 12hrs a day, it was finished with the inner texture being like chorizo.

The colour was very dark, almost black, very fiberous texture before it is cut but when cut across the grain it was perfect.

 

Well was it any good..... 4 days to make...... almost all gone in a day.

 

Give it a try, far better than anything else you can do with Canada goose!!

 

Dasher

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In theory any meat can be preserved. The only thing to consider are pathogens. Would you eat the meat cooked rare? If not, I'd think twice before making it into biltong, but I have seen chicken biltong in South Africa. I'm not sure if Salmonella or Campylobacter are endemic there as it is in factory chickens here.

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My other half laughs at me with my raw chicken handling procedure.

 

However after having campylobacter just once after a camping trip there's no way I'd try chicken biltong. It destroyed me for a week.

 

Camphylobacter can do far worse - it is a precursor for auto-immune neurological diseases such as Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Nasty stuff - handle factory bred poultry like it is nuclear waste.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yep, been there, ill'est that I have ever felt.

 

My other half laughs at me with my raw chicken handling procedure.

However after having campylobacter just once after a camping trip there's no way I'd try chicken biltong. It destroyed me for a week.

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  • 2 months later...

After finally finding the time and making my Biltong box I have got a kg of Topside in there drying. Every website I looked at there was a different recipe. So I have taken everything on board and guessed. This is something I have wanted to do for a while and took me about an hour to knock up.

 

Plastic box £5.99

Pvc pipe £3.20

Computer fan £6.99

Mesh £3.99

Bulb holder and cable I already had. (Can't be more than £5.00)

Psu for fan, old bt Internet box power supply. Everyone must have a old 12v psu from something.

 

So I would think anyone could make a Biltong box in a few hours for about £20 or £30. Mine is a prototype, if I am please with the results I will reuse the bits and built a larger cabinet type box with a door at the front.

 

Roll on Friday.

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Nice one,

 

It's really easy to make the box and the biltong is almost foolproof to make. It just takes a few goes to get used to how quickly the varything thickness of meat will dry in your biltong box.

I've not actually used the lamp since the first go, as mentioned above it's the airflow that's key. Especially with the warmer period we're now in give it a try with just the fans.

Still worth having a lamp though if using it in a cold garage or room.

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  • 1 month later...

Well last night was a blur of biltong and beer, what a combination. We managed to just about finish it all, first taste test was an excellent result.

Good to hear it was a success! Did you end up building a bigger box? Any pics? I'm still tinkering with my recipe but still haven't had a disappointing batch.

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Guest Wilksy

After finally finding the time and making my Biltong box I have got a kg of Topside in there drying. Every website I looked at there was a different recipe. So I have taken everything on board and guessed. This is something I have wanted to do for a while and took me about an hour to knock up.

Plastic box £5.99

Pvc pipe £3.20

Computer fan £6.99

Mesh £3.99

Bulb holder and cable I already had. (Can't be more than £5.00)

Psu for fan, old bt Internet box power supply. Everyone must have a old 12v psu from something.

So I would think anyone could make a Biltong box in a few hours for about £20 or £30. Mine is a prototype, if I am please with the results I will reuse the bits and built a larger cabinet type box with a door at the front.

Roll on Friday.

 

Hiya! Thanks for listing the components, I was wondering what the 12v psu stands for is like an old phone charger? That's the only bit I'd get stuck on is powering the fans, great thread by the way I love biltong!

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I ended up with this to power the fans, not from this seller so can't vouch for them but it's most likely the same transformer.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-12V-1-5A-UK-power-supply-AC-Adaptor-Transformer-for-LED-Strip-5050-3528-RGB-/251371097768?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3a86e28ea8

A couple of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/80mm-Cooling-Fan-Desktop-Internal-Computer-Case-PC-3Pin-/360316222785?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item53e4853d41I think I cut away the yellow wire which is the variable speed control and just wire in parallel to the connector that comes with transformer.

These fans shift quite alot of air, my box takes only a few days at most to dry out even quite thick cuts of meat.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Going through my freezer I found a big old lump of venison, its been in there I don't know how long I guess over 2 years, so decided that I might as well give it the Biltong treatment. Once defrosted it seems like its a boned out shoulder (possibly) but I cut it into large pieces and removed as much of the sinew as possible in it went into my mark II box after some vinegar and spices. I just tried the first bit and it is very good, a bit more fibrous than beef but that may be to do with the cut of meat I expect.

 

So I now have a new pile of Biltong that cost me the best part of nothing to eat with a few beers :beer:

 

Happy Days :good:

Edited by rimfire4969
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  • 1 year later...

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