Noble Notations
Recipes / Baumy Biltong
Reciperevision 6via import

Baumy Biltong

Six batches of working out a wash and a dredge

The current specification: a 10 kg batch with 321.7 g of wash and a dredge sized for coverage rather than by ratio alone.

TextureChewyTextureResists the bite and needs working. In dried meat this is a target, set by how far the drying was taken.PreservationCuringPreservationPreserving with salt, and often nitrite, which both draws out water and directly inhibits bacteria — notably Clostridium botulinum.TechniqueDry-curingTechniquePacking in salt, and usually nitrite, to draw out water and make the meat inhospitable to spoilage organisms before drying.EquipmentDrying boxEquipmentAn enclosed cabinet with a fan and often a low heat source, holding steady airflow and humidity for curing meat.CourseSnackCourseEaten between meals and usually out of hand.CuisineSouth AfricanCuisineA layered cuisine of Dutch, Malay, British, Portuguese and indigenous traditions. Strong on open-fire cooking and dried, spiced meat.TechniqueAir-dryingTechniqueRemoving moisture by moving unheated air across the surface. As a technique this is about airflow, humidity and time — the physical act rather than its preserving effect.PreservationAir-dryingPreservationPreserving by lowering water activity until spoilage organisms cannot grow. The same physical act as the technique of the same name, classified here by what it achieves.EquipmentSpice grinderEquipmentA blade or burr mill for whole spices. Grinding to order preserves the volatile aromatics that pre-ground spice has already lost.

Why this revision

Planned 10 kg batch, not yet cooked. Built from batch 4 per-kilogram ratios (the most complete batch without substitution problems), scaled to 10 kg, then batch 5 learnings applied: +30% on the wash and +40% on seasoning volume. Salt deliberately held flat at 13.85 g/kg rather than raised 40% — salt dissolves, so it does not need a volume bump for coverage, and over-salting is the one error here that cannot be corrected.

Method

7 steps

Prep

  1. Weigh the whole silverside, then cut it into strips along the grain. Weigh each strip and record it — this is the number every later drying calculation is measured against.

    Butchery

  2. Grind the coriander on its own, coarsely. Grind the remaining whole spices separately and combine into the dredge.

    Coriander is the one that matters here: you want visible pieces in the finished biltong.

    Grinding

Cure

  1. Combine the wash ingredients. Work fast and keep the meat cold — as it warms, fat and myoglobin bleed into the wash and it stops being usable.

  2. Wash each strip thoroughly, then dredge it in the spice mix until fully coated.

    Make more dredge than you think you need. Running out part-way through leaves the last pieces bare.

    Dry-curing

  3. Rest the spiced strips in the fridge for one to two nights. This is functionally a dry brine — weigh the pieces before they go in.

    1 d–2 dDry-brining

Hang

  1. Hook each piece and hang it with air moving freely around it. Record the hook weight so net weights stay honest.

    7 cm steel hooks (13 g)drying box

  2. Dry until the piece has lost roughly 55% of its net weight. Expect about 13–15 days for a medium piece; weight loss averages 4.21% of initial weight per day, and small pieces go much faster.

    13 d–15 dAir-drying

Notes

3
ObservationEquipment

30 × 7 cm steel hooks, 13 g each — €29.97. The 13 g is subtracted from every gross weight to get net.

IdeaSalt: conservative or full +40%

The alternative reading of the batch 5 note gives 193.9 g of salt. Batches 4 and 5 both tasted right at ~13.5–13.85 g/kg, so this revision takes the conservative figure. If the finished batch reads under-seasoned rather than under-covered, that is the number to revisit.

ObservationExpected yield

About 45% of net weight, so roughly 4.5 kg finished from 10 kg raw, across an estimated 25–30 pieces.

Provenance

Started as a South African staple made from Irish silverside in Berlin, which is most of the reason the spice profile drifted toward tandoori masala.

Recorded runs

4

Revisions

  1. Revision 6

    Planned 10 kg batch, not yet cooked. Built from batch 4 per-kilogram ratios (the most complete batch without substitution problems), scaled to 10 kg, then batch 5 learnings applied: +30% on the wash and +40% on seasoning volume. Salt deliberately held flat at 13.85 g/kg rather than raised 40% — salt dissolves, so it does not need a volume bump for coverage, and over-salting is the one error here that cannot be corrected.

  2. Revision 5

    Ran short on Worcestershire, tandoori masala and cayenne, so this batch is a set of substitutions rather than a clean iteration: 70 g Worcestershire instead of 99.4 g, 50 g tandoori topped up with 54 g garam and 50 g Indian masala, and 80 g piment d'Espelette standing in for cayenne. The two learnings worth keeping are +30% wash and +40% seasoning volume.

  3. Revision 4

    Wash finally scaled properly with the meat (~197 g for 7.98 kg). Heat added deliberately for the first time: 10 g cayenne plus ancho, chipotle and guajillo. Tandoori doubled to 107.4 g. The dredge still ran out — 1.6 kg of meat went uncovered.

  4. Revision 3

    Added the masala base that defines the profile from here on: 54 g tandoori masala (about a third of total spice weight) plus 3 g garam masala. Coriander raised sharply from 3.53 to 5.92 g/kg. Salt settled at 10% below the batch 1 rate. The wash was left unchanged despite the batch 2 note saying to increase it.

  5. Revision 2

    Scaled to 5.98 kg and introduced a wash for the first time — 141 g of mixed vinegars and Worcestershire. Salt cut 20% from batch 1, which was too salty at 15.88 g/kg. Forgot the garam masala entirely and had to add it just before hanging.

  6. Revision 1

    Baseline batch. 1.7 kg, no wash at all — just salt, pepper, coriander and star anise straight onto the meat, in two measures because the first was clearly not enough.