Curing With Air, Not Heat
Biltong is cured beef that dries in open air with vinegar and spices, not meat that gets smoked or cooked over heat. That one difference in method changes almost everything else about the final product, from how it feels in your hand to how it tastes on your tongue.
The process starts with a vinegar cure, which lowers the pH on the surface of the meat and helps keep bacteria from taking hold. From there the beef gets coated in a spice blend built around coriander and black pepper, the two spices that show up in biltong going back generations, and it gets hung to dry in a room with controlled airflow and low humidity. No smoke, no oven, no heat source at all. The meat loses moisture slowly over days, and what's left has been preserved the same basic way people preserved meat in South Africa long before anyone had a refrigerator.
Why Jerky Takes a Different Path
Most jerky sold in the US starts from sliced or ground beef that gets marinated, then cooked, smoked, or dehydrated with heat. Heat is what makes jerky jerky. It's faster than air-drying, it deals with bacteria in a shorter window, and it produces that tough, stringy chew a lot of people grew up on.
Picture a bag of gas station teriyaki jerky. It was almost certainly cooked at a set temperature, then dried further with more heat to hit a shelf-stable moisture level. That's not a knock on jerky, it's a different process built for a different result. Biltong skips the heat step. The vinegar cure and the spice do the preservation work up front, and air drying finishes the job over time. Nothing about biltong ever touches an oven or a smoker.
What That Actually Changes in the Bag
Skip the heat and the texture ends up closer to a good cured meat than to what most people picture when they hear the word jerky. Biltong tends to be softer through the middle, especially cut thicker, and it shears apart along the grain instead of stretching or shredding in strands. The vinegar also leaves a tang that cooked jerky doesn't have, since heat changes how spice and acid sit on meat compared to a slow air cure.
This is where flavor gets room to actually show up. Because the meat never sees high heat, the spice stays close to how it would taste if you added the same spices to a dish at home instead of running them through a smoker. That's part of why Original biltong tastes clean and savory instead of smoky, and why Peri Peri can build heat gradually instead of tasting like a heat coating sprayed on top of jerky.
Where the Quality Stance Comes In
The curing process only matters if what goes into it is worth curing in the first place. Grub Company starts with grass-fed beef and kosher certification, and whole-muscle cuts get cured whole, not reconstructed from scraps. Mechanically separated meat, the stuff pressed and reshaped out of bits of a carcass, has no place here. We won't compromise on that, and we won't sell your family something we wouldn't eat ourselves. Air-drying a whole cut is slower and costs more than running cheap trim through a smoker, but it's the lowest-risk way to actually know what's in the bag.
If you've never had real biltong, the curing process is the reason it won't taste or chew anything like the jerky you grew up on. The next question is which flavor to start with, and Original is the easiest way to taste the cure itself before Peri Peri or Loaded Garlic add more on top of it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is biltong safe to eat since it isn't cooked?
Yes. Biltong is preserved through curing and drying, not through heat. The vinegar cure lowers the surface pH of the meat, which slows bacterial growth, and the slow air-dry pulls out enough moisture to make the meat shelf-stable. This is a traditional preservation method that predates refrigeration, and it works through chemistry and moisture removal instead of cooking. Grub Company biltong is also kosher certified and made from grass-fed beef, so you're starting with a clean cut before the cure even begins.
Why does biltong taste different from beef jerky?
Biltong is cured with vinegar and spice and then air-dried, while most jerky is marinated and cooked or smoked with heat. Heat changes the way spices and acid interact with meat, which is part of why cooked jerky tastes smokier and biltong tastes more like its actual spice blend. The texture is different too. Biltong tends to be softer and shears along the grain, while jerky is usually tougher and stringier.
Does biltong need to be refrigerated?
Sliced biltong and biltong minis are shelf-stable thanks to the cure and the drying process, though refrigeration or freezing will extend how long it stays at its best texture, especially for thicker cuts like biltong slabs. Once a bag is opened, keeping it sealed and cool helps it hold its texture longer instead of drying out further or picking up moisture from the air.
What spices are traditionally used in biltong?
Coriander and black pepper are the traditional base of a biltong spice blend, going back generations in South Africa. Grub Company builds from that same base and adds different profiles on top for different flavors, like the chili heat in Peri Peri or the aromatic garlic in Loaded Garlic, while Original keeps the traditional coriander and pepper cure front and center with no added heat.
Is biltong healthier than beef jerky?
It depends on what you're comparing. Biltong made from whole-muscle, grass-fed beef with a simple vinegar and spice cure tends to have a shorter, more recognizable ingredient list than jerky made from reconstructed meat with added sugars and heavy marinades. The honest way to check is to read the ingredient label on both and compare what's actually in each one, rather than assuming one category is automatically better than the other.
Can I cook with biltong the way I'd use jerky?
You can, though most people eat biltong straight out of the bag as a snack. Because it's air-dried rather than smoked, it doesn't carry a strong smoky flavor that would compete with other ingredients, so shaving it thin over a salad or a board works well if you want to use it as an ingredient instead of a standalone snack.
