Biltong for Beginners (Easy to Follow Recipe)

this video was sponsored by patreon hey everybody welcome to the channel i hope you're having a great day my name is eric and i'm glad you could join us because in today's video i'm going to share with you the entire process from start to finish on how to make south africa's number one meat snack biltong so for this video we're gonna keep things super simple and it doesn't matter if you've ever dry cured meats a day in your life you should be able to follow along this recipe and experience the excellence that biltong has to offer i'm going to show you how to prepare the meat i'm going to show you how to properly cure it and then of course i'm going to show you how to dry the meat and as you can see behind me we're not going to be using a biltong box for this recipe like i said earlier super simple recipe so without further ado let's make biltong the first thing we need to do to make biltong is prepare the meat and we're going to be using a roast known as silverside in north america this is called the bottom round in latin america this is called the palomia and when i flip this over you'll see on the opposite side of this particular roast a silver skin strip that's where it gets its name silverside so i'm just going to clean this roast up remove the silver skin we're also going to remove this one little section right here because it is also connected by a piece of silver skin we don't want that in our built on and really you could use whatever cut of beef you want you know top round is another popular choice for biltong to remove the silver skin we're just going to put our knife right underneath it and in one big scoop remove that entire piece and that's what that's going to look like so if you pay close attention you'll see a very thin line of silver skin which separates two muscle groups so all i'm going to do is separate those two muscles which will expose the silver skin we definitely want to remove that that doesn't dry well it doesn't break down well it's very chewy and so we're going to get rid of that silver skin the exact same way we did with the other one just cutting it right on out and then we'll just scrape off any meat that's remaining usually there's not very much and there we go there's our cleaned up silver skin pop that into the bin so now we've got our roast mostly clean let's flip it over to the fat side and take a look at some of the fat most of the fat on this roast is nice and firm and great for biltong so i leave it on but at the very bottom of this roast you'll notice right here where it tends to get a little soft i don't like the texture when it dries and so i'm going to remove just some of that softer fat you don't have to remove the membrane because that's not going to be an issue when this dries and so there we go that's about as much as i'm going to remove and there is our roast all cleaned up and now we need to talk about how to cut it so when you look at this bottom round roast and you divide it right about the middle you're going to notice that this bottom section has the grain running up and down just like that and if you pay close attention to the top section of this roast you'll notice that the grain of the muscle fiber is running left to right and with biltong we want to make our cuts with the grain so the first thing i'm going to do is just cut this roast in half which is going to make my pieces a whole lot more manageable and then we'll cut each piece appropriately with the grain so let's take a peek at this particular one and our grain is running up and down right and so what i like to do is just use my thumb as a guide and make that about the thickness of my biltong that's roughly about two centimeters and for me i find that that's the perfect size as it doesn't take very long to dry generally between five or six days to get ready depending on how dry you want it so we've got our lines let's go ahead and cut our stakes and this is what it looks like you know we've got nice even uniform pieces let's set that to the side and take a look at the other roast we're going to do the exact same thing we're going to cut this with the grain as you can see the grain here is kind of running up and down and so that's how we're going to cut this roast and just remember whatever cut you end up using and you can literally use whatever cut you want you know eye of round top round it really doesn't matter just make sure that your cuts are always with the grain and this is what it should look like once you're done so let me grab this one little piece notice how the grain is running up and down so this was cut with the grain because when our biltong is finished and we slice it we're actually going to be slicing it against the grain as you can see right here and so that's going to give you a really nice tender chew with a finished product all right now we have our roast completely done this is that one little muscle group that we separated in the beginning and notice this is very clear the grain is running up and down and so we're just going to do this the exact same way we're going to cut this with the grain using our thumb as a guide and there you go that's how you prepare your meat for biltong we're now ready to move on to the next step which is the curing step and notice we're taking this nice and easy i want you to be able to follow along without any problems but if at any point you have a question leave it in the comment section below so let's get on to the next stage which is curing the meat and i wanted to make this step incredibly easy so that you can experience the exact same success that i do so all we're going to do is start by weighing all of our meat mommy weighs 4540 grams so just head over to the recipe link in the description box below type in the weight of your meat and it'll automatically calculate all the ingredients that you need to add we've got red wine vinegar and worcester sauce next we're going to add salt and we have here whole black peppercorn we're going to set that to the side and then finally we're going to have some coriander and as an optional ingredient i'm going to be adding red chili flakes you can leave that out or add it it's completely up to you and what we want to do with the coriander is toast it toasting the coriander is going to do a lot of things it's going to bring out incredible flavor but more importantly it's going to bring out the oils and the oils of coriander have been shown to have antimicrobial properties so that's going to help keep the bad bacteria away while our biltong is drying and it's now time to grind it up so you could use a coffee grinder you could use a blender i'm using a mortar and pestle the thing with grinding up your coriander is that you don't want to turn it into a very fine powder you want to mostly grind it up but you still want to be able to visibly see like the holes of some of the shells and so this is what it should look like when you're done and at this point your kitchen should smell amazing i mean coriander wants toasted and then freshly ground has these nutty floral almost slightly fruity notes so we're going to place that into a bowl and then go ahead and do the same thing for our peppercorn and chili flakes now this particular mortar and pestle is extra large and if you want information on this one i'll put a link in the description box below and just like the coriander we don't want to grind this into a super fine powder we do want chunks and bits in there and so this is what it should look like when we're finished that's about perfect and we're going to go ahead and add that to the coriander okay so our spice mix is done notice i'm keeping the salt separate that is going to stay to the side we've got the wuster and the red wine vinegar we're just going to combine those and now we're ready to begin so in a tray that's large enough to handle all your meat you're going to place half of that red wine vinegar worcester sauce and then just go ahead and layer the meat take the other half of that liquid and then just spread it over the top and just rub them down once all your meat has been coated go ahead and take your salt now we are going to be using 100 of this salt the recipe that i've got in the description box below is an equilibrium recipe so there is absolutely no way that you can over season this so take half your salt and season the top side of the meat and then go ahead and sprinkle enough coriander mix to make sure all that meat is coated once you're done flip the meat over and then repeat the process you're going to go ahead and take the rest of your salt and make sure that you apply it to the other side of that meat now remember we're using 100 of this salt and then what i like to do and this is totally optional is to reserve a little bit of that coriander spice blend and set it to the side we're going to add that at the end of the process like i said though totally optional you don't have to do this if you choose not to do this you're just going to add the rest of your coriander blend to your meat just like that and then we're going to go ahead and place this inside of a vacuum seal bag if you don't have a vacuum sealed bag you could use a ziploc bag that's totally fine as well and because this is an equilibrium recipe we want to make sure that no spices or no liquids remain in the pan so all of it goes into the bag just like that your pan should be relatively clean by the time you're done and now we're just going to go ahead and give it a quick vacuum seal and like i said if you're using a zip lock bag no big deal just try to get as much air out of it as possible this particular vacuum sealer is a heavy duty vacuum sealer from the sausage maker nice tight seal and you could do moist or dry food and there we have it our meat has been seasoned this is the curing stage of our biltong we're just going to take this massage it every now and again place it into our refrigerator for anywhere between 24 and 36 hours remember you cannot over season this so if you let it sit a little bit longer not a problem after 24 to 36 hours your meat is fully cured and it's now time to move on to the last step which is drying the meat for this step we need to get our hooks ready and if you have plastic hooks you know feel free to use those i'm just going to be using these coated paper clips as this is what i had on hand i wouldn't suggest using the non-coated paper clips as that might give your meat a funny taste so i'm gonna let them soak in vinegar for a couple minutes to disinfect them and then we're gonna weigh our meat i'm gonna record the actual weight and then i'm gonna record a target weight of 50 percent weight loss biltong can be broken up into a couple different categories wet or dry at 50 weight loss you're basically going to have a wet biltong and you may like that at 70 or 75 percent weight loss you're going to end up with a dry built on so in the beginning i would suggest experimenting with the level of dryness for your biltong for me personally i like a 55 to 58 weight loss that's just about perfect for me so that's why i say start at 50 give it a taste and if you prefer a dryer biltong you can let it hang for a couple more days we're going to take our reserve coriander spice mix at this point and then just go ahead and use it all up to coat our biltong and that's going to give us a nice spice crust and at this point it's ready to hang we're going to be hanging this in an area that is between 70 and 80 fahrenheit or 21 to 26 celsius and a humidity that's between 50 and 60 percent a nice warm environment by a sunny window with a gentle breeze blowing over your biltong is absolutely perfect just make sure wherever you hang it it's between 70 and 80 fahrenheit with a 50 to 60 percent humidity if you live in an area where those conditions aren't really possible you might need a biltong box and if you do and would like to see a video on how to build one leave me a comment in the comment section below as you can see here i'm at 76 fahrenheit and 56 humidity perfect for drying biltong and now that our biltong is drying let's talk about today's sponsor this video was sponsored by the patrons of this channel the patrons of this channel are the two guys in a cooler producers with their monthly contributions the patrons not only helped produce videos like this and the celebrate sausage series which we just finished a couple months ago but they also helped us build what is quite possibly the most extraordinary website on the internet if you're into sausage making and if you want to see for yourself you'll find a link for this recipe in the description box below if you'd like to be a producer for the two guys in a cooler channel check out the link in the description box below we try to offer a lot of value to our producers so you're not only going to get awesome discounts from companies that you're most likely already buying from especially if you're into dry curing meats or making sausages but if you are a top-tier producer you get personal access to me where if you have a question or a problem in your sausage making or dry cured meats journey all you got to do is reach out usually i'll give you a quick phone call we can get the issue sorted and you'll be well on your way so if you want more information on how to become a producer for the two guys in a cooler channel check the link in the description box below thank you guys once again couldn't do it without you let's get back to bill tong [Music] our biltong is officially ready it's been hanging in my kitchen here for about five days most of the pieces here are uniformly cut i do have a couple pieces that are a little bit smaller you know like this one this was an end piece this right here was another uh end piece so those are going to be a little bit drier than the other ones but for the most part these are dried to kind of where i like them which is between that 55 58 weight loss let's go ahead and cut into our biltong let's just grab this nice big fat piece i wanted a piece with a nice level of fat on the edge here and let's see what it's all about [Music] so [Music] do [Music] let's go ahead and taste the biltong that was dried to about 55 58 i mean you've got a little bit of a dry line on top and bottom that's characteristic of a good biltong it's going to be a little chewy on the outside very tender in the center nice looking fat cap smells great here we go wow i mean that's sublime very beefy the flavor is extraordinary and that toasted coriander is bringing all of those fruity and nutty notes that it has a little bit of pepper spice coming in on the back end but nothing overwhelming overall absolutely incredible very very tender and i know some of you might not like the fat on there and you can certainly remove it but i highly suggest you leave it on because it not only adds a lot of flavor it adds a great mouthfeel and that piece was absolutely delicious i'm gonna eat the other half of it i'm telling you if you live in north america and you're a huge fan of beef jerky you may never look at jerky the same again after you eat this built on all right let's go ahead and taste the one that was dried to about 65 percent this one feels a little bit drier it's definitely a little darker smells just as good so let's just give it a taste wow that is so good i can literally eat this all day long so both versions very tasty slightly different eating experiences the drier one the one i just ate is a little chewier now don't confuse chewy with tough because it's still incredibly tender it just has more of a bite to it and i do feel you know kind of on the front end i'm getting more of that coriander element and it might be a little bit spicier and that could be because it's dried a little bit more and the spices tend to magnify as you lose water weight and really after it's all said and done biltong comes down to personal preference and that's the beauty of making this recipe at home you can control the dryness you can control the flavor profile and you can make a biltong that's custom fit specifically for you so thanks a lot for watching this video that's all i got for you today if you have any questions on how to make this bill tong be sure to leave them in the comment section below and if you're new to this channel and you liked what you saw and you want to see more go ahead and click that subscribe button and that notification bell so you can be notified of each one of our weekly uploads if you like this video or got anything out of it in any way be sure to smash that thumbs up button that is always appreciated thanks again for being here we'll see you next week bye [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: 2 Guys & A Cooler

Views: 564,003

Keywords: dried meat, biltong for beginners, survival food, beef jerky, cured meats, How to make Biltong, South African Biltong, Easy Biltong Recipe, The best beef jerky

Id: qqE8ETRrqjY

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 08 2022

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[u/sesameskies]

That was so nice to watch, thank you for sharing!

Edit: ...Something clever about your username and the video content ;)