Butcherʼs hooks are quite expensive, and there are a number of alternatives you can use. Cut wire coat hangers or paperclips are the two I have used - so long as they are sterile and free from odours and chemicals.
Additions
You can add almost any flavour you like to this mix. At the marinade stage you could add molasses or honey garlic, Worcester sauce, soy sauce, ketchup, oriental sauces such as Hoi Sin.
Really Easy Jerky
This recipe is simple, easy to prepare and is essentially almost not cured - though it is. You are using simple ingredients from most kitchens and then cooking the meat very very slowly at the lowest settings. It is best if you use a convection oven and if your oven has a defrost setting, all the better.
Ingredients
500 ml Worcester sauce 250 ml Soy sauce
200 ml Apple cider vinegar 1 tsp cayenne pepper
4 crushed and grated cloves of garlic 1 very finely chopped onion (medium) 1 tbsp red pepper flakes
5 g salt
1 Kg thinly sliced steak
Instructions
Mix all the ingredients together and infuse the onion and garlic into the marinade. Place the slices of steak into the marinade and leave overnight or at least 12 hours. Remove the meat from the marinade and wipe dry, removing any onion on the surface.
Set the oven to its lowest temperature. If your oven goes as low as 40C or lower, then you need to cook on a rack for about 12 hours. However, many ovens have a minimum of about 75 C, where you will need about 7 hours.
Test the meat for readiness - it should be dry and it should be not squidgy. If you are in any way unsure about it give it another hour and retest.
You can change this recipe by adding a tablespoon of honey to the marinade and about 100 ml boiling water to help dissolve it. You can also smoke your biltong, either by using one of the artificial methods - liquid or powdered smoke, or in your cold smoker.
Actually I have never done this in a hot smoker - maybe thatʼs a recipe for the next edition!
Image by Jamsta at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons