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Mike Neeson

Hello all, while my rifle is out of action, I have been busy. I have tried to connect with a little of my South African heritage and make some Biltong. I built this dryer out of a 120L storage bin



I made the mistake(?) of asking my butcher for a whole silver side. I nearly fainted when he slapped 7kg of beef onto the counter - the one I had from my Fallow was a quarter the size! Anyway, having recovered from the shock, I realised that using the 120L bin had been a good choice after all! I lugged the beef home and set about carving it up. I cut with the grain, long strips about 2" (5cm) thick.



Then painted on some good apple cider vinegar to all sides of the meat. Beef was then sprinkled liberally with an Aussie spice mix I bought off ebay - mainly coriander, salt, pepper and some sugar. This was left in the fridge to marinate for about 6 hours - some recommend 12 hrs. You can experiment with adding tabasco to the vinegar if you like. the vinegar is the preserving agent. Once marinated the strips were hung using paper clips as hooks and the air dried for about 4 days being careful to not let the strips touch each other or anything else for that matter.
Some driers are made with a small 40w light to add heat, by a friend from SA advised that more air and less heat was much better - so I used an extractor fan to pull a heap of air through. This was the result and it's delicious. Some pieces are a little softer than others and when sliced, reminds me of pastrami. The pantry is full of dried meat - awesome quick snack or lunch at work.



Hope the images work...