Dehydrating with The_blue - Easy beef Jerky

ganesh said:
Yes i'd be interested in cheese, it happens to be my second favourite thing, with meat being the first. In fact i watched Gordon Ramsey make halloumi the other day which looked surprisingly easy and delicious.
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In my fridge i have brie, stilton and lancashire, all home made ;)

Can work out how to do the thread though, was thinking of a made with The_blue job where everyone gets the parts and we all make togeter... ;)
 
fornowagain said:
Always have a couple of kilos of biltong on the go.

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Slice it the other way. With the grain. When you make the strips and slice them the bite sized bits will be accross the grain and easier to chew :)
 
timmothy said:
fornowagain that looks awesome, proper biltong. I have not had any for ages and now have a major craving.
Are you originally from SA?
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No mate, but had some close Saffa mates on the oil rigs way back. They got me started, gave me the recipes and that. Love the stuff, must have made a hundred batches. Tried cutting it different thickness/lengths, curing times, spices and exotic ingredients. I find simpler is better, tend to go for 2.5kg silverside/topside with just the tiniest bit of fat. My missus likes it wetter, still soft in the middle so I pull some out early. Only thing is now all my kids are addicted, I hardly get a look in. Curing time is all, tastes miles better cured slowly.
 
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This thread is driving me crazy :(

Whats the best meat to buy? Will make a trip tomorrow to sainsburys to get some. I HAVE to try this.

\o/
 
ac1d1ty said:
I've never bought meat before apart from a bit of mince, is it expensive? How much would I be looking to pay for a 1kg of it (I assume you need this much for jerky).
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£6/kg I guess. Just bought 2.4Kg of Silverside around £15 from Morrisons, with biltong you'll loose more than half of the weight as it dries out.

Andelusion said:
fornowagain what's the recipe you're using there?
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For 2Kg meat to make 1Kg of Biltong. I use 60g sea salt, 100g brown sugar mixed together. Cut in slices about 1cm thick and as long as you can get, not too wide maybe 4cm. You can go thicker, but it takes longer to dry and may still be 'soft' inside. Some people like it that way. Mix the meat with the salt/sugar and sit in a colander for an hour, loads of blood will be drawn out. Put about 500ml of wine/cider vinegar (splash or two or Worcestershire sauce if you like it) in a bowl and 'wash' the meat, put it back in the cleaned colander to drain. Seasoning, 20g whole coriander seeds (roast in pan first), 8g black pepper corns, 2 or 3 tsp of chilly flakes and 1 tsp of garlic granules. Grind the mix (Mortar & Pestle) till it's all broken up, but not too fine. Toss the seasoning and meat, really work it in, let it sit for an hour. Hang the meat (coloured paper clips, not sure if metal ones would corrode) so each strip doesn't touch. A cardboard box with a few holes will do. Put a 60w bulb in the bottom and a fan at the top to speed things up. Wait a couple of days (the hard bit) until its the way you like it, don't rush it helps with the flavour and texture. Devour.

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Hey thanks for the info! I bought some silverside today, just under a kilo.

It's currently marinading in the fridge. I would have followed those steps fornowagin as I really like the look of yours - I'm a big fan of using pepper corns on meat so you get a kind of crust, anyway if it tastes as good as it currently smells I'll be making it again anyway!

I used cider vinegar (as inspired by fornowagin's receipe) a little soy and worchester, then a lot of szechaun peppercorns (crushed in a tea towel slightly), Chinese 5 spice mix and some cajun spice mix (for a bit of heat), along with some salt. Quite a lot of ingredients but I usually use this (minus the vinegar) when stir-frying beef anyway so should at least like the flavour.

Will post some pics up tomorrow :)
 
...and the results!

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Nom :D

Recipe:

1kg Samoncut Silverside beef
Good slosh of cider vinegar (main base)
Soy sauce, worchester sauce (adjust to taste)
Szechaun pepper corns (ground coarsely)
Black pepper corns (" ")
Chopped garlic
Chinese 5 spice
Salt
Sugar (about a couple of teaspoons)

I'm very pleased how it turned out. Once the meat had finished marinading (about 48 hours in total), I decided to crush up some black pepper and szechaun corns in a pestle to dab half of the meat in. As I hoped, half of the jerky has a nice crunchy crust (with a real hot after-taste) and half is much sweeter.

There wasn't much run off in the drip tray despite the amount of marinade the meat soaked up, it's a really intense flavour actually, a couple of pieces have been a bit chewy so far, I didn't cut off all the fat so I'm not going to leave it that long. It dried for in total about 6 hours at around 50 degrees Celsius (I turned it up to about 60 for the last hour), I reckon I'll invest in a proper dehydrater for future attempts as it meant we had to make the lasagne (tea) in the microwave :p

I'm going to buy some 'proper' jerky and see how it compares. I'd like to try a peri-peri type I've seen advertised.
 
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