NN · Biltong Batch 7

03 SEP 2026

Baumy Biltong · 03 SEP 2026

Biltong Batch 7

Black Angus silverside from Ireland, 8.7 kg raw and about 7.5 kg after trimming silverskin and fat. Hung 3 September 2026 at 13h00 across 25 pieces, 7944 g net of hooks at 12 g each. First batch cut to a thickness spec rather than to the seam, and first with MSG in the dredge. Nitrite was specified and then dropped for lack of supply. In progress: 9 pieces cut as of 11 September, 16 still hanging.

Raw 7.94 kg

Finished 1.10 kg

Yield 13.8%

Pieces 25

Scale ×0.86

How it went

three notes · one failure

Incomplete at the time of writing. Nine pieces down, averaging 46.6% loss off net.

What worked. The three-way pull target held up: pieces 23, 24 and 26 came off at 45.5%, 54.9% and 49.2% and were all judged right by taste, which validates 46% for the thicker pieces, 55% for offcuts under 12 mm and 50% in between. The 25 mm cut dried roughly twice as fast as the batch 2 model predicts, which is the expected consequence of halving the thickness and is now measured rather than assumed.

What went wrong. About half the dredge was left in the bowl, so salt landed near 9 g/kg green against the 15.5 g/kg specified. That is well below the 12.7 to 14.1 g/kg band of batches 2 to 5. The large pieces will read flat. The three pieces that tasted right were the three smallest, which carry roughly 1.7 times the salt density per gram because pickup scales with surface area, so they are not evidence that the batch is correctly seasoned.

What that forced. The remaining large pieces were moved from a 46% pull to 52%, since half the salt with no nitrite and a wet pull stacks three margins soft at once. Finished salt rises to about 1.75% and water activity comes down to roughly 0.82 rather than 0.86. Costs some of the red core. Worth it here.

Unresolved. The deep red interior, which was the object of the whole revision, is not solved without nitrite. See the science note on the recipe.

Hanging weights total 7944 g net against roughly 7.5 kg of trimmed meat. The 4.3% difference is adhered dredge plus retained wash.

WARNING Salt landed at about 9 g/kg, not the 15.5 specified

Roughly half the 486 g dredge was left in the bowl, so about 67 g of salt reached the meat rather than 135 g. Against 7.5 kg of trimmed meat that is near 9 g/kg green, or about 1.57% in the finished product at a 46% pull, against the roughly 3.08% that batches 4 and 5 delivered.

The three pieces judged correct on taste were 23, 24 and 26: the three smallest in the batch, 59 to 154 g net. Spice pickup scales with surface area while mass does not, so those carry close to 1.7 times the salt density per gram of a 500 g piece. They are not representative and should not be read as the batch being correctly seasoned. Expect the 400 to 560 g pieces to read noticeably flat.

The number is also uncertain in a way that cannot be recovered. Salt is denser and finer than the rest of the mix and percolates downward as the bowl is tossed, so half a mix is not half of each spice: dredging off the top gives a salt-poor fraction, from the bottom a salt-rich one. Treat 67 g as central with real error either side.

Next batch: weigh the leftover mix rather than estimating the fraction used.

NOTE · RESULT The three-way pull target is validated

Pieces 23, 24 and 26 came off at 45.5%, 54.9% and 49.2% of net weight and all three were judged right on taste. That confirms the split introduced in revision 7: about 46% for pieces over 20 mm, 50% in the middle, 55% for offcuts under 12 mm.

The reasoning holds. A thin piece has no meaningful moisture gradient, so the whole cross-section sits at one water activity and pulling it at 46% leaves it soft rather than red and wet. A thick piece pulled at 55% has dried its core out and lost the colour the revision was aimed at.

Caveat: these three were tasted against a batch that came out under-salted, so what was judged was texture and dryness rather than the whole profile.

NOTE · OBSERVATION No item 5

The piece numbering runs 1 to 26 with 5 absent, giving 25 pieces. Batch 5 had the same gap at hook 10. Worth confirming this is a numbering skip rather than a piece that fell or was lost track of, because an unaccounted piece in a drying box is a mould risk for everything around it.

NOTE · OBSERVATION Hanging weight runs about 4.3% above trimmed meat weight

7944 g hung against roughly 7.5 kg of trimmed meat. The 344 g difference is adhered dredge plus retained wash, at about 32 g of dredge per kg.

This does not need correcting out of the pull targets. The dredge is present in both the hanging weight and the target, and the pieces judged correct on taste carried the same inflation. A nominal 46% off hanging weight is about 48% of actual meat dehydration, but 46% nominal is the number that produced the result, so it is the number to keep. Correcting for spice now would undo the calibration.

One real asymmetry: because pickup scales with surface area, the 400 to 560 g pieces carry proportionally less dredge than the small ones, so nominal 46% on them is closer to 47% actual. Marginally wetter, which is the direction wanted for the red core.

Per-piece record

twenty-five pieces · four readings each

01 1

397 — — —

02 2

411 8 208 49.4

03 3

522 — — —

04 4

548 — — —

05 6

478 — — —

06 7

545 — — —

07 8

487 — — —

08 9

482 8 279 42.1

09 10

436 — — —

10 11

307 — — —

11 12

301 — — —

12 13

402 — — —

13 14

371 — — —

14 15

232 — — —

15 16

240 8 135 43.8

16 17

285 — — —

17 18

205 8 101 50.7

18 19

261 — — —

19 20

207 5 123 40.6

20 21

177 — — —

21 22

143 — — —

22 23

154 6 84 45.5

23 24

71 4 32 54.9

24 25

223 8 104 53.4

25 26

59 5 30 49.2

Weights as they were written down, in the units they were recorded in. The table scrolls sideways inside its own box; the page does not move with it.