Bespoke Biltong, the home of the BB Brain Box

We are a South African based start-up, giving a new and exciting spin on the modern urban requirements of DIY biltong making. Our range of products has been specifically designed and selected for you to showcase your efforts: as a conversation piece, in your living space or on your bar counter.

The dryness of biltong is now measurable by using the revolutionary patented biltong dryness indicating scale, called the Bespoke Biltong Brain Box and App. Whether you like it wet, moist, medium
(firm), dry or bone dry, you can dry your biltong to perfection every time in our Bespoke driers- thus our slogan: dried to your liking!

Adding to the bespokeness, the BB Meat Slicer enables you to cut your biltong into predetermined thicknesses, as each thickness has its own drying characteristics and particular taste sensation.

Imagine enjoying fresh biltong over a longer period and never having to freeze your surplus again! Now made possible by using the new affordable vacuum packaging technology.

Simply put: if you make biltong the Bespoke way, it becomes “Befokte Biltong”(colloquially translated from Afrikaans, meaning really good/exciting/cool.

Take a closer look at our product offering. 

More About Us in Johan’s own words:

I founded the company in 2020 during lockdown (the state of isolation because of the Covid-19 pandemic proved to be a fruitful time for me), but the idea for the scale originated 10 years ago in the hot Middle East. As an expat living in Qatar, making biltong was one of the ways my late wife Aletta and I managed the longing for our kids and country. Getting the biltong dried to my liking was a problem though, because I preferred my cuts moist. Unfortunately, it usually ended up completely dry. Squeezing it to determine its readiness was about as accurate as tapping a watermelon to ‘hear’ if it’s ripe and sweet and I just knew there had to be another way.

I came up with the idea of weighing each piece of meat with some form of feedback, indicating the progress of the drying process. Thus, the concept of the Bespoke Biltong Scale or Brain Box was formulated, with the App (for the oldies: a type of software that can be installed and run on a computer, tablet or smartphone) being the next logical component. 

Perhaps subconsciously, but even at this early stage, I must have drawn from my education as a Wood Scientist, which addresses the drying of timber in quite some detail. But then again it could have been ideas building up from devouring my dad’s library of post war Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines. I also have a personality trait that analyses absolutely everything, trying to find the reason beyond the clutter.

Most important is the home in which I was brought up. My mother, the creative one, and my father the engineer, played key roles in promoting creative thought processes in their children. I did my “apprenticeship” at home. My mother always said she would be happy if we ended up with jobs in the bank, but that job profile did not match the upbringing we got. Luckily there was some “flexibility” in criminal law when we were kids, otherwise our “creativity” would have landed us in some reform school, or worse, in jail.

Once I had the concept for the scale formulated, I needed that kick to take it further. Many ideas are parked because there is no stimulus to take it forward, and we respond, knowingly, that it would not have worked in any case. My kick came when the big C paid me a visit, but timely intervention now permits me to relate this event, and I got a handsome insurance pay out. The development of the scale became a bucket list item because there was a bucket to kick at the time.

The process soon took on a life of its own. Each solution revealed a new challenge which led to a new idea, and so forth, leading to the current range of Bespoke Biltong products. In short this is how it happened: The scale had to be suspended or supported for it to be tested, and that is how the single-piece drier, BB1, came about. Martin, my son-in-law, sent me a picture of three strips of meat in a packet and the triple drier, BB3 was born.

The biltong C-hook happened because the plastic ones available were too long and would not optimise hanging space in the drier. Another problem solved by the C-hook was that the throat is big enough to accommodate a 40mm thick slice. Lastly the C-hook was designed so it would not pivot on the proprietary J-hook of the scale. It is self-centering.

 The bigger driers BB12 and BB72 were designed not only to dry the biltong but to provide the owner detailed inventory control information and sales analysis. Why? Because we have access to the data.

The notion of standardising on the thickness of biltong came about when I started continually weighing biltong as it dried. I mixed my own spices and tested several different recipes. The smaller pieces were saltier and the thicker pieces too fresh or bland. This was the square-cube law in action. I designed the BB meat slicer and standardised on thicknesses of 24, 32 and 40mm. The taste sensation of a thicker slice, at the same moisture content as a thin slice, is completely different.

Once biltong has been drying for a day or two it is difficult to distinguish clearly between different thicknesses. The solution was to identify the various thicknesses by tagging them. Apart from the dryness level, you now have a second piece of information, provided by our colour-coded thickness tags, when selecting your perfect piece of biltong.

Spicing the biltong was yet another challenge. By analysing recipes in South African cookbooks, we found that most of them began with 25-50 kg of meat. This is way more than most urban biltong makers could manage. Through trial and error, we established that the prepacked 8 - 10 kg portions best suited the Bespoke Biltong making method. Once this portion size had been established, we were on our way to providing our own spice selection.

Enter Adele du Toit, our food and spice fundi. She sourced spice blends from the most prominent suppliers in South Africa and tested many variations until she was able to provide a range of basic spice blends and sprinkle flavours to “spice up” your biltong.

If it ever comes to mind to freeze your biltong to preserve it, please don’t! Freezing affects the taste and texture. While some aficionados can taste the difference, many can’t but they are doing themselves a great disservice. But how then to preserve your biltong?

Our solution is to provide alternative methods to do so. The Billie Bag, or Biltongslopie as we used to call it in Afrikaans, is a modern version of the washed-out maize meal cotton bag my late mother-in-law, Miemie Nel, used on the farm to keep her dried biltong in. We are passing on this tradition to ensure the best storage for your Bespoke Biltong.

From a preparation and ‘pre-drying’ perspective, our sous vide (a french term meaning 'under vacuum') bags enable you to preserve marinated raw biltong in the fridge for up to 4 weeks, turning ‘spiced’ biltong to ‘infused’ biltong. This preservation method ensures optimal use of your selected 8-10 kg cut of meat, ensuring a constant supply of Bespoke Biltong.

And the name Bespoke Biltong? That was coined by my wife Barbara Tuit. I confess I had to look up the word in the dictionary. My brother-in-law Dave Lusted said the name was too presumptuous, just call it Befokte Biltong! But, in the name of modesty, Bespoke Biltong stuck, and we are very proud of it!

A few years on and this innovative little gadget has catapulted biltong-making into the 4th Industrial Revolution, the IOT (Internet of Things), personalisation…and any other tech buzzwords that apply, because now there is access to the data and we can prove its validity.

Enjoy!