Monday, September 8, 2008

Jedidiah's Beef Jerky - Premium Peppered

Jedidiah's Beef Jerky - Premium PepperedJedidiah'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 represents standard beef jerky, while their Private Reserve 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, water, salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate, paprika, spices, garlic, sodium nitrite.

Taste

I get a garlic and salt taste immediately upon putting a piece into my mouth. There is also a barbecue-like taste to this, perhaps created by the paprika and garlic. With some chewing, I can pick up some of the natural meat flavors. The black pepper comes through after the swallow.

The predominant taste in this jerky is the salt. After two pieces, I'm getting a salt scorching. Of course, I've been tasting this carefully writing this review, sucking on the pieces for several seconds, and then chewing. You may be able to withstand the saltiness if you chew and swallow more quickly, but then again, I prefer to savor the flavors in all the jerky I eat.

For being a black peppered jerky, there is a decent amount of peppery flavor to enjoy, but it becomes lost in the other flavors. I mostly experience the pepper as an aftertaste.

There is also a good amount of garlic detectable in this. And that barbecue-like taste I mentioned is there also, but not a strong taste. I wouldn't call this a barbecue variety, though some brands might. There's also a sweetness back in there that perhaps adds to the barbecue quality.

As for the natural meat flavors, I can pick it up somewhat, but I think it's largely lost in the other flavorings. I mostly taste it during the chew after much of the seasonings have worn off.

Overall, this is a very flavorful jerky, an intensely flavored jerky, with lots of different flavors taking place, giving the more developed jerky brain something to dissect and identify. The saltiness is something you can't escape from talking about, however. There's too much of it and wears on me.

Meat Consistency

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

This is a soft and tender jerky, being easy to tear apart, and easier yet to chew. Some pieces were very soft and moist, almost to the point of being room-temperature pot roast. I think this is largely a variance from package to package. Other Premium varieties of Jedidiah's that I've reviewed had been drier and tougher.

I did find some pieces with strands of tendon, but not many. Other pieces appear to have spots of fat. But I found none with gristle. For the most part, this is a good meat consistency, with not much in the way of being chewy.

Jedidiah's Beef Jerky - Premium Peppered

Jedidiah's Beef Jerky - Premium Peppered
Product Value

Jedidiah's sells this Premium Peppered 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, this offers a great value. It's just explodes in your mouth with flavor, and a complexity of flavors that makes you think about what all is in there. Add to it the soft and tender meat consistency, and it creates a great snackability.

As a peppered jerky, it's a good value. There is certainly enough black pepper on these pieces to be seen, and there is a good deal of taste, but it's hard to find with all the flavors competing for attention. If you're really after the black pepper taste, you might see this as a weak buy.

Rating

Jedidiah's Beef Jerky - Premium PepperedI'm giving this a good rating.

This Premium Peppered variety from Jedidiah's Jerky is brimming with a complexity of flavors that covers every part of your tongue, from the spicy pepper, the slight sweetness in the background, and the salty. You might even find this to have a barbecue-like taste to it. And the soft and tender texture helps you down this stuff quickly.

But that saltiness, it's just too much for me to handle on an on-going basis. This is a jerky that I'd love to eat, but not as part of my regular staple of jerky. The flavors are great, but my mouth gets scorched from the salt.

But I really love a jerky that packs in a lot of flavors, and this one does it. It'd be great to get more of the natural meat flavors, but then again, it could have been lost in the other flavors, or lost from the tenderization process, who knows.

I'd recommend a beer that's light on flavor, like a honey blonde ale, to counter the saltiness.

Rating: Good

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