For some reason, Barbell Air Dried Steak was never really on my hit list of jerky or biltong brands to try. I think it was the colour of packaging that made it look boring and the lack of a window to see the product may have also deterred me, but now that I’ve bought a box of it (yes, it came in a box) I can see that there’s some subtle personality to this brand once you start reading the packaging carefully and even the box itself is neat.

My box came with three 700g bags of biltong – Chilli Medium Heat, Sea Salt Carnivore Snack and Classic Original Blend.

As usual, I went straight for Chilli flavour. Spicy meat snacks are my favourite, but for setting a baseline for a new brand to try out, I really should start with one of the plainer flavours to get a better sense of the taste and quality of the meat without being overpowered. Yet, probably 10 or so brands deep into Australia’s jerky and biltong brands and I’ve done it again.

Barbell Chilli Biltong

This medium heat is a very satisfying heat level and I demolished the bag in the time it took me to write the above. The texture was nice and soft and the thickness was perfect. A very high-quality product, there wasn’t a single piece that was overly chewy or needed to be spat out. Or perhaps I got lucky. I would definitely eat this again.

Barbell Sea Salt Biltong

I suppose this is as close to a plain flavour as you can get for biltong. The purple font on this made me actually think it was salt and vinegar flavour at first. Upon eating it, it actually does taste a bit like salt and vinegar, as vinegar is an ingredient in the curing process for biltong. It’s quite subtle, though, but not too bad. It kind of reminds me of the homemade biltong I tried making years ago, except much softer and easier to eat and overall better. As a flavour, it’s not something I’d buy again, but the texture is good, and it has a bit of fat on it, which is nice. It adds a bit of grease to it, which I actually enjoy. Overall, it was ok, but I wouldn’t get it again.

Barbell Classic Original Blend Biltong

This was the third one that I ate I much prefer it to the salt one. It Barbell’s interpretation of classic South African biltong and it’s definitely better than my traditional recipes. It’s got the coriander seeds, black pepper, cloves and cayenne pepper that gives it light spice that most people will enjoy and something slightly exotic and different to the flavours I usually review (spicy stuff mostly). This did not appear as fatty as the salt one did. I would certainly consider this flavour again but I think I liked the Chilli one the most.