I bought my box from a mail order company some years ago. Seems odd but it was £20. Came with everything needed to make biltong. Trays, box, rails, bulb in holder etc. I'd been researching home made biltong for a couple of years an just never got round to making a biltong box - so the biltong factory was ideal.
And given that it's done sterling service for the last few years I certainly don't feel shortchanged :-)
The original biltong factory was developed and marketed by a chap who subsequently sold out to a larger company.
http://www.makeyourownbiltong.com/sh...g-factory.html
Oh yeah if you buy the current kit I would strongly recommend throwing away the biltong 'spice' that comes with it.
They sent me some a few years ago after I'd reviewed the box. And it was crumbled up beef oxo cube with a little coriander. Use my recipe and make your own :-)
Actually given that they want £49 ($85) for the current kit - just go get a lamp kit from a hardware store and snag a big cardboard box and a roll of duct tape and a couple of coathangers, a handful of paper clips and make your own :-)
At the time I bought the box I'd been buying biltong mail order. It was expensive and often had large amounts of fat, which I'd throw away. So I boght the kit and haven't looked back since :-)
The box itself is composed of 3 parts. A base, a lid and the middle 'square tube'. All made of standard grade box cardboard.
Height - 30 inches.
11 inches square.
The base and lid are 2 inches deep and 11 1/4 inches square to fit snugly over the tube.
The heat source consists of a 40 watt bulb mounted in a standard bayonet bulb holder screwed to a piece of mdf. A standard lamp cord passes through a small slit in the base to a switch followed by a plug. In other words it's a standard lamp fitting without a lamp :-)
The 2 hanging rails are thin steel rods. Straightened out coat hangers would do fine - as might bicycle wheel spokes. I've wound masking tape round the ends of the rods that stick out from the box for the obvious reason od stopping them being pushed inside.
The drip tray stands on a randomly folded bit of cardboard so that it's about 3 inches above the height of the bulb. This could be easily improved on - but it works so I haven't bothered :-)
I can 'biltong' about 4 lbs of beef at one go in this little box.
Bear in mind you start with large strips and end up with smallish sticks
Good biltong #is ready when the outside feels hard but you can still feel a little give in the stick. When cut through it should be a uniform dark red shading to black (no nitrites/nitrates needed to do this ;-)
To answer a couple of questions.
1) there is no smell - I keep and run my biltong box in my bedroom. (not strictly true - it smells fabulous :-) Better to say there is no strong or objectionable odour ;-)
Follow my method and recipe and I guarentee it will both be odour free and very few drips make it to the drip tray. Those that do tend to evaporate over the course of the 3-4 days anyway :-)
Pics attached.
Enjoy :-)