I have done jerky , I would like to do more different types of meat drying

I have heard of biltong

what other types , methods and recipes do you know of

A few that come to mind are country cured hams and bacon and some dry fermented sausages like sopressata.

There are several other cuts that get cured and smoked.......like off and on for a few weeks. There are a bunch of Bosnians in south St. Louis that do that in special smoke houses.......and old ethnic tradition that is rarely talked about or practiced in US.

Part 1 . this guy also includes parts 2 and 3

very interesting on the Bosnian smoked beef shows just how simple a smoke house can be and work

Im experimenting with country curing some hams right now. Thinking about building a smokehouse soon as well to try to rely less on refrigeration

I got thinking on a non electric drying box
I heat primarily with wood so this time of year the stove is going most of the day
right now I have it in cardboard , which seems a little strange to be putting on the wood stove but I am sitting right here and watching the temps

I started with the two stove grates from my old kitchen stove , I use them like trivets to keep things warm without cooking the bottoms of things on the stove

on top of that is a large cookie sheet with a bakers cooking rack set in it plan is to put foil down so the dried on drips are easy cleanup

the box is 16 inches tall and as wide as the cookie sheet about 1 1/2 inches deeper than the cookie sheet it was just a box I had that I brought something home from the hardware store in .
the box is open on the bottom other than 1 1/2 inches all the way around to help it keep it's shape

as I started up the fire this morning I put the drying box on and started watching the temps at the front bottom
when it got up to 101 convection took over fast and it dropped to 82-83 in a minute that is when I fitted the lid

I played with the gap at the back so air can come in at the bottom front and out at the top back
with a little adjustment it is holding very steady 169-174
it

is all about adjusting the lid gap I had it running in the low 190s

the convection is enough that a tissue held over the opening floats up




I am thinking clean up 2 old aluminum arrows I have a quiver full of not bent but not quite strait arrows or missing fletchings and use them as rods across the box about 2 inches down from the top , then on skewers hang meat laying from arrow to arrow I should be able to get a decent batch of meat in.

the food dehydrator runs 165 or that is what the setting says so hanging out high 160s low 170s is right where I think I want to be too hot for bacteria ,yet cool enough to not really cook the meat. all that convection should dry it out quickly.

if this works in cardboard I am thinking of making it in sheet metal and possibly going taller to be able to do more rows of meat

most days a large canner full of water sits on the stove direct on the cooking surface and it and the large coffee pot boil of about 4 gallons of water a day that is my humidifier. but I can easily forgo my humidifier while cooking or dehydrating.

after a few hours with some decently steady temps first test run with some meat is in
it was 148 after the fire burned down some
some minor air adjustments were made

my plan was the shishkabob skewers but I didn't have any so this is a metal chop stick I dug out of the bottom of the utensils drawer

I have one of those side x side barrel smokers. I put a small bucket with 2-3 chunks of charcoal in it. Toss a chunk of wood on it. Lots of smoke no heat for smoking cured bacon. I cook hams at about 225 for 12 hours in it using wood.

thanks
I had a batch of jerky get left in the doghouse of my van one year I found it then next year it was still good and we ate the entire bag I make my jerky rather dry

going to try ground jerky this year also

found Biltong , Tiko , the lady with the Tiko recepie also did a dried catfish recipe that was interesting
machaca a Mexican dried and hammered meat
carne-seca another dried Mexican beef

I found this guy has a series on dried meats and a video on making a Biltong box
https://twoguysandacooler.com/mexican-carne-seca/

is it a home made barrel smoker , if so do you have pictures?

Landjager is a semi dry sausage popular in Green county (very Swiss local population) you can find it hanging at gas station counters in a box around here , I may have to make that also my youngest loves landjager

We see it around here too in Sheboygan county. Ate a lot of it over in Poland. Great snack to carry with when hunting or hiking.

If you loosely wrap your landjaeger in paper and refrigerate it it will dry down a lot, and keep maybe forever, lol, sort of like a Bavarian pemmican. Good on the go meal/snack..German military rations included landjaeger..

As for Biltong, I prefer it over jerky...Another thing you might consider is salting meat. Sailing vessels always carried salt beef and pork for their extended journeys....

just let it warm back up and be carful I busted a filling on a refrigerated landjager years ago and my Polish Dentist best dentist ever was telling me they can't or couldn't ship landjager because they would get a little mold and you couldn't ship mold across state lines.
not sure how true that is but he is still the best dentist ever and a little white mold won't hurt you

I loved that stuff in Germany was amazing.

it seems like biltong and some of the others most common to beef use larger pieces of meat

I end up with more smaller stuff from deer and such that I typically grind so I will also be exploring more sausages and ground type jerky.

No I bought it

You can also make some Pemmican.

thanks I looked that up , I had always thought Pemmican had more carbs with more of a sugar as a bonding agent

I found a recipe with 1.5 pounds meat to .5 pounds berries and .5 pounds tallow.