Your Guide To Spicing Biltong, Droëwors & Boerewors

Biltong, droëwors and boerewors are South African staples, and most meat production businesses are aware of this and stock their own variations. When spicing these familiar favourites, there are many options. Take a look at our seasoning guide to find inspiration for your next batch of biltong, droëwors and boerewors.

Boerewors 

This is many South Africans’ favourite as they come with their own flavour. So, you need to give your customers a range of seasoning options and let them indulge in more than just the basic braaied boerewors. Here are some seasoning ideas to introduce to your boerewors loving consumers: 

Here are a few of our famous boerewors spices:  

• Homestay Boerewors Spice: With spicy notes of coriander, cloves and pepper, this medium spiced seasoning is perfect to add a little zing to your boerewors. 
• Egte Plaaslekker: Highly spiced with coriander, pepper, cloves and nutmeg. This is for those that love a little bit more spiciness to their boerewors. 
• Hunters Boerewors and Kameelhout Boerewors spices: Both are typical boerewors seasoning with mild spicing and great taste. 

Droëwors 

With droëwors, you want to season before the drying process. This is to lock in the flavour of your seasoning. Keep it simple with a Worcestershire sauce, tabasco sauce and lightly add salt and the spice of your choice. And if you want to give it extra character and flavour and maybe show off a little, you can try out these droëwors spices : 

• Plaaslekker Style droëwors: This product is the same as the ever-popular Plaaswors boerewors, except that it contains a mould inhibitor as a preservative, namely potassium sorbate 
• Hunters droëwors: A tangy droëwors spice with top notes of black pepper and cloves
• FH Original Dry Wors: A blend of ground spices for a traditional taste. 

Biltong 

The Cutting 

When it comes to biltong, you can pretty much cut biltong meat from any part of your meat. The trick is to control how you slice it. Ideally, for industrial manufacturing, slice 2.5cm thick slices and for home manufacturing, go for 1.5cm thick using a biltong cutter. Remember; the thicker the meat is sliced, the longer and harder it will be and take to dry.

Important note: Always try to avoid vacuum packed meat. Mould is more likely to form on meat that has been vacuum packed or pre-packed and has been lying in its own blood for a few days. If you only have access to vacuum or pre-packed meat, first check whether or not the bloodiness around and on the meat has become “tacky” when you unseal the pack. If it has, then take care because this is a prime mould stimulant. Remember, blood is a filtering system in the body and will be carrying many pathogens, bacteria and mould, which will then be passed onto the meat. To counter this, you will need to wipe the meat down thoroughly with a cloth dipped in vinegar and then pat it dry afterwards before beginning to spice the meat. 

The Spicing 

• Spicing biltong takes a bit of time; however, once you have completed the process, the hanging and drying in the Biltong cabinet will do the rest to ensure the flavours are locked in nicely. 
• Place freshly sliced meat strips into a tray or bowl side by side so that meat touches and no gaps are present between strips. This prevents any wastage of spice.
• Lightly sprinkle half of the pre-weighed Freddy Hirsch spice over one side of the meat. Ensure that the entire surface of the meat is sufficiently covered by spice; spread out spice lightly by hand. Spice will begin to change colour as it soaks into the meat.
• Take each strip of meat and turn it over in the tray to expose the unspiced side. Repeat the above procedure to spice meat with the rest of the spice. Allow to soak in for a few minutes.
• Turn meat onto a fat strip and spice the exposed edge of the meat.
• Meat should be completely covered by spice.
• If you are stacking meat in a tray, place the thicker pieces on the bottom of the tray and stack thinner pieces on top. This added pressure will assist in pressing spice into the meat.  
• Try to prevent meat from lying in its own blood; place a draining board in the bottom of the tray to keep meat out of its blood.

Here are a few of South Africa’s favourite ways to season biltong using our spices:  

• Freddy Hirsch Kalahari Biltong Spice is one of the most popular biltong spices with a fantastic taste suited to all varieties of meat, from beef to game and ostrich. It contains no less than 16 different flavours: garlic, onion, pepper, oregano, coriander, parsley, ginger, nutmeg, mace cardamom, and cinnamon are just some of the ingredients which make up this delicious biltong spice. 
• Freddy Hirsch Hunters Biltong Spice is a beef flavoured biltong spice with top coriander and black pepper notes. It makes inexpensive cuts, even those from supermarkets, taste so, so good. The coriander and pepper notes make it quite different from others on the market.
• Freddy Hirsch Original Biltong Spice. It has a rich and flavourful taste.

Final Thoughts 

You are definitely spoiled for choice when it comes to seasoning with Freddy Hirsch, so it is just a matter of which flavour you are looking for. Remember to not over-season your biltong, droëwors and boerewors, as that may take their flavour.