BILTONG

[Joe Wood]

Hello to any BILTONG makers... I tried my first batch using the conventional blend of coriander, salt and black pepper... {This after the brown vinegar & spice  soak}... I hung the strips in an open wine cooler {unplugged} ... Covered the opening with cheese cloth and placed a fan in front of the cooler on 'low' setting... Three days later the biltong pieces are pretty hard  BUT.... I see some white mold  almost like a dusting of Mold600... Does anyone know if it could have come from the wine cooler as that is where I age my hard salami? Please see five photos... For those not  familiar with biltong ... It ALL looks pretty ugly..

1. Vinegar soak for three hours

2. Strips laid out to be seasoned

3. Seasoned and ready to hang

4. & 5. After three days in the wine cooler

 

Thanks in advance... Joe

[Okanagancook]

Hummmm, when in doubt, throw......

Here's a pic of mine done in an electric food dryer.  No sign of white bits.  My notes, this was made in 2016, say 155F for 12 hours then 95 to 104 for 26 hours but I see mine was done after a total of 20 hours.

[Joe Wood]

Okanagancook,

Your end product looks delicious!... Lots of coriander...I did more research on my white powder mold... It's called  Penicillium  Nalgeovense... {Not standing behind the spelling but you get the drift}... It's a good mold like you may see on aged salami. You can see this in some photos I posted of some hanging to dry... This is the mold that fights {and wins} against the bad stuff 

[teonzo]

Personally I would be more cautious with this stuff. Better throwing some money than risking your health, unless you are 111% sure.
Before making biltong again you should sanitize you cooler/chamber with a bleach solution, especially if you made other stuff like salami before that.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[Joe Wood]

Thank you Teo... Good advise 

.. Do you make this stuff too?  Any secrets?

Joe

[teonzo]

No, I don't make charcuterie, I heard some discussions by people who make them and tried to learn something.
When you deal with microbes you need to be really really cautious. Risks can be very troublesome. The major risks are in the short term: food poisoning, meaning you risk to go to the hospital or worse. But there are long term risks too. You risk with spores, toxins, filaments and such stuff. You don't realize they are there, you don't even get sick if you eat them, but they lead to health damages in the long term. There are toxins that can lead to liver failure in 10-20 years. If you eat food with those toxins you don't get sick immediately, everything seems fine, but you end up paying a huge price after years. Better avoiding this!
This to say that when your result is different from what should be, then it's always better to be skeptical and taking the safe way (throwing it). In your case it seems like your biltong experiment was contaminated by some microbes you used in a previous experiment for another product. This leads to 2 questions:
1- are you totally sure those microbes are only the good ones and there are not stuff that can be harmful in the long term? Personally I would not be sure and would prefer to throw it, I value my liver much much much more than $50.
2- why was that biltong contaminated by those microbes? Most probably you did not sanitize your cooler/chamber before putting the biltong in that, which is a mandatory thing to do for safety reasons.
So I would suggest you to get more informed about these sanitation issues, the risks at stake are really high.

 

 

Teo

 

[Joe Wood]

Makes good enough sense to meTeo... I'm tossing it!