Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Jedidiah's Beef Jerky - Premium Mild

Jedidiah's Beef Jerky - Premium MildJedidiah's Jerky is a brand produced by Jedidiah's Jerky and Gourmet Snacks based out of Laughlin, NV.

The business was started by David Coffey in 2005. Coffey is a veteran of the meat snack industry having started with Polley's Jerky in 1984, and launching another brand of his, River Run Jerky. His father worked in the jerky business before him.

The Jedidiah's brand was created to represent unique styles and recipes that appeal to the dedicated jerky snacker. This Premium Line of jerky is their standard jerky, while their Private Reserve line is a soft and tender beef brisket variety.

You can watch a video of Coffey talking about his jerky...
http://www.thetalkmarket.com/video/product/446/

Ingredients

Beef, salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate, paprika, spices, garlic, sodium nitrite.

Taste

A smoky aroma hits my mouth immediately upon a tasting a piece. I don't know if this jerky is actually smoked or not, but I do sense a smokiness to it. Otherwise, I got a very slight, and brief, sweetness up front, which gave way quickly to a saltiness. Moving into the chew, the garlic comes out more, and I can maybe pick up a subtle natural meat flavor.

For being advertised as a "Mild" variety, there's little anything mild about the taste. It actually has a strong flavor, and a good complexity of flavors to enjoy. I'm guessing the "mild" is in contrast to something hot, and in that sense it is certainly mild.

The taste that dominates this jerky is perhaps the saltiness, along with something comparable to a barbecue sauce taste. It doesn't taste exactly like barbecue sauce, but maybe something similar to the seasoning you'd find on barbecue flavored potato chips. Then, the garlic seems to have a significant taste in this also, but mostly while I'm chewing a piece.

The natural meat flavors are slight. I can identify it without having to search hard, but it doesn't really dominate the chew. The garlic taste is stronger than the natural meat flavors.

Overall, it's a good tasting jerky that relies on salt as its primary flavoring. It only works because it has enough of other flavorings, the garlic, the barbecue taste, to help break up the monotony. But across the entire bag, the saltiness wears on me. For being advertised as a "mild" variety, this might give you a salt scorching if you can't tolerate a lot of salt. So, I'm not really sure that "Mild" is a good way to describe this jerky.

Meat Consistency

These pieces appear to be cuts of whole meat, sliced medium, and in small to medium sized pieces.

For the most part, this is a dry jerky. But I tend to believe that this is mostly due to a variance from one package to another. I've had other varieties from Jedidiah's premium line that were softer or more moist.

It's fairly easy to tear apart and chew. I can bite down on a piece, and tear it apart with my hand without having to struggle. It's not soft or tender by any means, but still not tough.

I found several pieces with some bits or streaks of fat, but otherwise found no tendon or gristle.

Jedidiah's Beef Jerky - Premium Mild

Jedidiah's Beef Jerky - Premium Mild
Product Value

Jedidiah's sells this Premium Mild variety from their website at a price of $5.99 for a 3.5oz bag. That works out to $1.71 per ounce, putting this in the average price range.

For general jerky snacking purposes, it's a good value. This will give you plenty of flavor, with some flavor complexity, and a great meat consistency as well. It offers some good snackability, though I found the saltiness to wear on me after awhile.

For being advertised as a "Mild" variety, it's certainly mild if you're comparing that to something hot. In that case it's a good value as well, it won't burn your tongue. But it's not mild on flavor; it's loaded with flavor, mostly as salt. It can actually leave you with a salt scorching, depending on your tolerance for salt. You might not see this as being mild at all.

Rating

I'll give this a good rating.

It's a flavor-packed jerky, mostly between the salt, garlic, and barbecue-like seasonings, combined in a meat consistency that sits somewhere between soft and tough. That trio of flavors is enough to keep me interested in this jerky and reach for more and more.

But eventually the saltiness gains strength with each passing piece of jerky. It wears on me, and that causes this jerky to lose its snackability.

It's also rather weak on the natural meat flavors. There's enough there to detect, but not enough to enjoy.

But I still gave it a good rating because it still has a great taste, a complexity of flavors, and a great meat consistency. It still tells me there is something here that's above average.

Find yourself a light tasting beer, like a honey blonde ale, to counter the salt.

Rating: Good

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