Bare Earth is bringing a touch of South Africa to the UK.

For centuries, sun-drying meat was the primary means of preserving food. Beef Biltong can now be enjoyed as a premium quality snack, reflecting today’s demand for natural, wholesome convenience foods.

Bare Earth has taken traditional African recipes and cure its Biltong in purpose-built drying rooms.

Part of the process is to cure the beef after it has been marinated in various spices. The beef is placed on racks in a special chamber and then cured over a number of hours. However, there was moisture in the beef that prolonged the curing process and did not dry it out sufficiently.

Bare Earth contacted Munters to rectify this problem. The answer was to install a Munters dessicant dehumidifier to maintain the relative humidity (RH) of the drying chamber at 50% RH or lower. This has resulted in a consistent RH being maintained in the chamber and therefore producing a consistently high-quality product.

The principle of Munters dessicant dehumidifiers is very simple. Moisture is absorbed onto a slowly-revolving dessicant wheel as the air passes through. A small heater reactivates the wheel in another air-stream and drives off the moisture which has collected on the drying side of the dehumidifier.

This is either vented outside the building or collected as condensate and discharged. As all the moisture is removed as water vapour by the dessicant wheel, the dehumidifier can operate effectively even at very low temperatures and still maintain the desired humidity conditions