Biltong maker box

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The biltong making process demands a bug-free environment with consistent airflow to dry the cured meat during processing. This box is a standard 42L plastic container from the store featuring cutouts for the fan mount and air intakes covered with a piece of cheesecloth. (air in, bugs out) The fan is a 90mm DC one from a PC power supply, specifically the Foxconn PV902512PSPF 0D model. A Uniden wireless phone charger Model: AAD-600S was originally hooked to the fan with an 5.5mm x 2.1mm Female/Male DC Power Plug, outputting 9V and 210mA of power. The rods for hanging the meat are 10mm thick pine doweling rods, cut to length at approximately 350mm in my case. For food safety reasons and easy cleaning purposes, I varnished the pine rods with clear polyurethane varnish. You can also use aluminum tubes if you have some lying around. The two pieces for air intake are an inner part (going through the wall from inside) and an outer part sliding onto the inner one from outside. The cheesecloth is placed between the two. After a couple of drying processes, it might be necessary to clean or replace the cloth, hence the two parts that can be disassembled. This build is relatively easy; you'll need a drill for holes, a few hand tools to cut out the plastic box and rods, and to connect power plugs to wires. Making biltong: I usually use silverside or similar cuts (whatever available). I cut the meat into 15-20mm thick slices and cover them with biltong spice mix and roasted, cracked coriander seeds. You can make your own mix; I use Freddie Hirsch' Jagveld or Hunters biltong spice. When covering the meat with the spice and coriander, I lay them into a box on top of each other and let them sit in the fridge overnight or at least 12 hours. Next day I remove the slices from the box and let them drip-dry or tap them carefully down with a paper towel. To hang the meat, I use folded out paperclips as hooks to pierce the meat and hang it on the rods, ensuring that the meat slices do not touch each other and air can flow around the slices. The lid goes on, power is turned on, and the fan moves the air constantly in the box. During the first day of drying there is a bit of dripping so I put a piece of paper under the meat. As the rods are easy to remove, you can take out the paper after a day or so. Depending on temperature, humidity, slice thickness, meat quality, and desired dryness, the drying process can be 3-10 days long. Obviously, this is not the only way to make biltong; there are zillions of other methods, choose yours wisely – the box works with all of them.