Traditional Biltong Recipe: The 400-Year-Old Method, Gram by Gram

Quick answer: A traditional biltong recipe is beef, vinegar, salt, toasted coriander, and black pepper — cured for 24 hours, then hung in cool moving air for 4–7 days. No ovens, no sugar, no liquid smoke. Below: the exact grams, the exact steps, and the mistakes that ruin batches.

I'm Calvern Tong, founder of Billi Tong's Biltong in Austin, TX. I grew up in South Africa where this recipe isn't written down — it's inherited. Here's the full method, the way it's actually done, with the numbers you need to do it right the first time.

Traditional biltong recipe: ingredients (per 1 kg beef)

• 1 kg (2.2 lb) beef — silverside, topside, or eye of round. Whole muscle, never ground.
• 125 ml (½ cup) brown vinegar — the cure and the tang. Apple cider vinegar works.
• 25 g (4 tsp) coarse salt — not fine table salt; it pulls moisture too fast.
• 15 g (2 tbsp) whole coriander seeds, toasted and roughly crushed — the soul of biltong.
• 5 g (2 tsp) coarse black pepper.
• Optional, traditional: 5 g brown sugar appears in some family recipes; ours uses none, ever.

The method, step by step

1. Cut with the grain. Slice the beef into strips 2–3 cm (about 1 inch) thick, following the muscle grain. Thick strips dry slowly and stay tender inside.
2. Toast the coriander. Dry pan, medium heat, 2–3 minutes until fragrant. Crush roughly — you want cracked seeds, not powder.
3. Cure for 24 hours. Splash the strips with vinegar, coat every surface with the salt-coriander-pepper mix, layer in a non-metallic dish, and refrigerate. Turn once at 12 hours.
4. Dip and pat. Quick dip in vinegar to rinse excess salt, then pat dry. This second vinegar pass is the food-safety step — it drops the surface pH so bacteria can't establish.
5. Hang in moving air. Stainless hooks or clean string, in a biltong box or any cool, dry space with a fan and airflow — strips not touching. 20–25°C (68–77°F), low humidity.
6. Wait 4–7 days. Day 4 gives you wet (soft-centre) biltong; day 7 runs drier. It's ready when it gives slightly under a firm squeeze and has lost roughly half its weight. Judge by feel, not the calendar.

Why the vinegar matters (the safety part)

The vinegar cure is a 400-year-old preservation engine, and modern research backs it: peer-reviewed studies show a properly cured, air-dried biltong process achieves a greater-than-5-log pathogen reduction — the USDA-FSIS standard for dried beef — with no heat step. Skip the vinegar and you're not making biltong; you're gambling. The full history and science: how biltong is made.

The mistakes that ruin batches

• No airflow. Still air is how you grow mold instead of biltong. A cheap fan solves it.
• Sealed too early. Store finished biltong in paper, not plastic — the full storage guide.
• Cutting across the grain before drying. Cut with the grain to dry; slice across the grain to eat.
• Using an oven or dehydrator on heat. Then it's cooked — and cooked is jerky's whole problem.

FAQ

How long does traditional biltong take? One day of curing plus 4–7 days of air-drying — about 5–8 days total. Thicker cuts and humid weather run longer.

What beef is best for biltong? Silverside, topside, or eye of round — lean whole-muscle cuts with the fat cap left on if you like it traditional.

Does traditional biltong have sugar? The oldest recipes don't. Some family recipes add a pinch; commercial jerky adds a lot. Ours has zero.

Can I make biltong without a biltong box? Yes — any cool, dry, ventilated space with a fan works. The box just makes airflow and insect protection foolproof.

Or skip the wait

Making biltong is a rite of passage. It's also 8 days away. Ours is already dried, bagged, and ready — grass-fed, zero sugar, protein-packed, hand-delivered in Austin (free within 5 miles of downtown, $6 across the rest of the metro). Get The Classic →