I'm on a weeks annual leave this week which I needed to use or lose by the end of march, time off and nowhere to go means catching up on some project ideas that I've been wanting to do for ages. First job, build a biltong cabinet!
After a LOT of reading threads, websites and watching YouTube videos I realised one thing more than anything else; There is no 'right way' to make these. Essentially a box with air flow and a source of low heat is it, the details are down to the builder.
I used an old kitchen cupboard I had lying around in my basement, screwed in some some scrap bits of wood that I'd cut slots in to take the rails and cut some copper pipe to length to use as rails. I use my hole saws to cut ventilation holes in the bottom and used my router for the square hole at the top for the fan. A quick wipe out with a diluted bleach solution and it should be fine for food use.
I cut the barrel jack off a 12v DC battery charger I had lying around, and then soldered jointed the wires to the computer fan (donated by a friend after I broke my first one!).
The light source is a 60w bulb in a fitting that was surplus after upgrading my basement lights from bulbs to strip lights over the weekend.
And that's it. All in it cost me £2 for the computer fan (which I broke and ended up not using) and the price of the 60w bulb!
Now for the meat!! As this is my first go, and as a treat to myself for finally getting round to actually building the thing I thought Id go for a top cut of meat, 2Kg of Silverside from my butcher and a selection of spices etc..
Cut into slices with the grain of about 1.5-2cm thick. Again m research showed me there are hundreds of ways people say you should do this, all valid and all different. At the end of the day is personal tastes and what you like to eat that will determine how you do it. We'll see how this works out and I'm sure I'll try other ways in the future.
I mixed up 6 table spoons of pepper, 8 of salt (4 sea salt and 4 rock salt) and 4 of corriander in a large mixing bowl and dry rubbed the meat slices in it to coat them. I then threw in 10 tablespoons of malt vinegar and 2 of Worcestershire sauce to the remaining dry mix and mixed it make the marinade. The meat went in all sloshed around to gt good even coverage. Covered with cling film and into the fridge for just over 3 hours. I turned the meat and sloshed the marinade round once every hour.
Once out of the fridge I patted the slices dry with paper kitchen roll:
and hung with string on my copper pipe rails.
I also added a tin foil drip tray and a little foil tunnel to keep any drips off my bulb.
She's now whirring away nicely and on Friday I should be able to see if I've ruined some perfectly good beef or not!
Cheers,
James
After a LOT of reading threads, websites and watching YouTube videos I realised one thing more than anything else; There is no 'right way' to make these. Essentially a box with air flow and a source of low heat is it, the details are down to the builder.
I used an old kitchen cupboard I had lying around in my basement, screwed in some some scrap bits of wood that I'd cut slots in to take the rails and cut some copper pipe to length to use as rails. I use my hole saws to cut ventilation holes in the bottom and used my router for the square hole at the top for the fan. A quick wipe out with a diluted bleach solution and it should be fine for food use.
I cut the barrel jack off a 12v DC battery charger I had lying around, and then soldered jointed the wires to the computer fan (donated by a friend after I broke my first one!).
The light source is a 60w bulb in a fitting that was surplus after upgrading my basement lights from bulbs to strip lights over the weekend.
And that's it. All in it cost me £2 for the computer fan (which I broke and ended up not using) and the price of the 60w bulb!
Now for the meat!! As this is my first go, and as a treat to myself for finally getting round to actually building the thing I thought Id go for a top cut of meat, 2Kg of Silverside from my butcher and a selection of spices etc..
Cut into slices with the grain of about 1.5-2cm thick. Again m research showed me there are hundreds of ways people say you should do this, all valid and all different. At the end of the day is personal tastes and what you like to eat that will determine how you do it. We'll see how this works out and I'm sure I'll try other ways in the future.
I mixed up 6 table spoons of pepper, 8 of salt (4 sea salt and 4 rock salt) and 4 of corriander in a large mixing bowl and dry rubbed the meat slices in it to coat them. I then threw in 10 tablespoons of malt vinegar and 2 of Worcestershire sauce to the remaining dry mix and mixed it make the marinade. The meat went in all sloshed around to gt good even coverage. Covered with cling film and into the fridge for just over 3 hours. I turned the meat and sloshed the marinade round once every hour.
Once out of the fridge I patted the slices dry with paper kitchen roll:
and hung with string on my copper pipe rails.
I also added a tin foil drip tray and a little foil tunnel to keep any drips off my bulb.
She's now whirring away nicely and on Friday I should be able to see if I've ruined some perfectly good beef or not!
Cheers,
James
