Biltong vs Jerky: An Honest Answer From People Who Make Both

Ask a South African if biltong is just jerky and watch their face. Ask an American if jerky is just biltong and you will get the same look in reverse. We make both, every week, in the same Busselton smokehouse, so we are in a rare position to give you the answer without picking a side. They are cousins, not twins, and the differences run all the way from the cut of the meat to the last chew.

Where they come from

Biltong is southern Africa's answer to a hard question: how do you keep meat good under an African sun with no refrigeration? The technique goes back centuries, long before European settlement, and was sharpened in the 1600s and 1700s when Dutch and French settlers brought vinegar and spice into the cure. The word itself is Dutch: bil for rump, tong for strip. It travelled in saddlebags and ox wagons, and it fed people crossing very big, very dry country.

Jerky's family tree runs through the Americas. The word comes from charqui, the dried meat of the Quechua people of South America, and the technique moved north over centuries into what became the American jerky tradition: thin cuts, seasoned or marinated, dried with gentle heat.

Same problem, different continents, two proud answers.

The big one: air versus heat

Everything else flows from this single difference.

Jerky is dried with heat. Thin slices go into a dehydrator or low oven, and over some hours the warmth drives the moisture out. Technically, jerky is slow-cooked meat.

Biltong never meets heat. Whole strips hang in cool, moving air for days and dry slowly from the outside in. It is cured, not cooked, which is why good biltong keeps a depth and softness that surprises people raised on jerky.

Neither approach is a shortcut. They are just different crafts, and we treat them that way: our jerky gets its long marinade and its patient hours in the dryer, and our biltong hangs in the drying room for as long as it needs. Days, not hours. Rushing either one is how you get the sad, cardboard stuff sold at petrol stations.

The cure: vinegar and coriander versus marinade

Biltong's cure is short and old: vinegar, salt, cracked coriander, black pepper. The vinegar keeps the meat safe while it dries and leaves a gentle tang behind. The coriander is the signature. If you have ever wondered what that warm, nutty, faintly citrus note in biltong is, that is it.

Jerky takes flavour on board before drying, through a marinade. That is why jerky carries bigger, louder flavours, and why we can push ours in directions biltong would never go. Smokey BBQ, honey pineapple, chakalaka, even Vegemite. The marinade soaks to the middle of the thin slice, so every bite lands the same punch.

Short version: biltong flatters the meat, jerky flavours it.

Cut, texture and the wet question

Jerky is sliced thin before drying, so it eats thin: a flat, satisfying chew, consistent from first bite to last.

Biltong is dried in thick strips and sliced after, which gives it something jerky cannot offer: a range. Dry the strip briefly and the middle stays soft and rare, what South Africans call wet biltong. Leave it longer and it firms right up. Our biltong runs to the wet side, because that is how we like it and how our regulars ask for it. If you are new to biltong, wet is the friendlier introduction: tender, deeply savoury, closer to a charcuterie than a snack bar.

And then there is droëwors, biltong's sausage cousin: boerewors-spiced sausage, air-dried the biltong way. Different shape, same heritage, dangerously easy to finish in the car on the way home.

The health question

People ask which one is better for you. Honest answer: read the label, not the legend. Traditional biltong has a very short ingredient list, ours included: meat, vinegar, salt, spice. No sugar needed. Jerky recipes usually carry some sugar in the marinade, ours included, because that is part of what makes jerky taste like jerky. Both are high-protein, both beat a packet of chips into next week. If you are strict low-carb, biltong is your straightest road. If you want maximum flavour for your protein, jerky earns its place.

What matters more than the style is who made it and what they put in. Everything we hang, dry and pack is made from real cuts in Busselton with no nasties, and every packet tells you exactly what is inside.

So which one do you buy?

Wrong question. The right question is what you are doing this weekend.

Long drive down south, esky duty, footy on the box: jerky, because bold flavours and a proper chew are made for that. Board on the table, friends around, something to slice and share: biltong, no contest. Kids circling the kitchen: snack sticks or droëwors and watch them vanish. Cannot decide: that is literally why we build hampers.

Or do what most of our regulars end up doing and keep both in the cupboard. The cupboard part is optional. Most packets do not make it that far.