Wayne's Jerky - Teriyaki

Next in the series on Wayne's Jerky is this Teriyaki variety. Read my review of their Original beef jerky.

Wayne's Jerky is a brand of Wayne's Jerky, LLC based out of Sobieski, WI. The company has been in business since 2006, available in stores throughout north-east Wisconsin.

As of this writing, all of their jerky is sold in "bites", bite-sized pieces, and in a chopped and formed product. Only recently did the company get a website going with online purchasing.

Ingredients

Beef, sugar, soy sauce powder, dextrose, salt, spices, butter flavoring, monosodium glutamate, sesame oil, garlic, onion, celery seed, onion powder, garlic powder, natural flavor, citric acid, cilantro, sodium nitrite.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a light sweetness, and a light saltiness.

The chewing flavor starts with an increased saltiness, a touch more sweet, some meat flavors, and a light bit of garlic.

For being dubbed "Teriyaki", I don't really find anything in this that resembles teriyaki, at least nothing like the teriyaki I'm accustomed to finding at a Japanese restaurant or even in a bottle of teriyaki sauce. If anything, there's a little bit of sweet, and maybe a hint of soy sauce flavor. But for me that doesn't make it teriyaki.

Instead, what seems to account for the bulk of this jerky's flavor is a garlic & onion seasoning, much like what I found in the company's Original variety. There's also a well noticed saltiness, though still not quite at a high level.

It also has that same "buttery" flavor much like the Original as well, which seems to provide more body and smoothness to the overall flavor.

The meat flavors are not really a "natural" meat flavor, but more like a cured meat flavor, similar to what you might find in a summer sausage or beef stick.

Overall, what you're going to notice in this jerky is a garlic & onion seasoning with a medium-high level of saltiness, along with a cured meat flavor and a buttery flavor and body. You won't really find much teriyaki flavor in this, or at least nothing that stands out as teriyaki.

Meat Consistency

This is a chopped & formed jerky, cut up into small, thin, bite sized pieces. They're actually very small bite sizes, perhaps just right for little kids, but for adults you'd have to eat two or three at a time to get a decent mouthful.

The pieces are mostly stiff, with just a bit of flexibility. It seems best described as a dry jerky, but with a semi-moist feel, or perhaps a light oily feel. Overall, ease of chewing seems moderate, requiring some effort if you're going through two to three pieces at a time like I'm doing.

The chewing texture feels quite typical of a chopped & formed jerky, starting out with a fair amount of rubbery chewing resistance, and then chewing down to a crumbly feel. I can pick up some sense of this being meat, but largely it feels crumbly.

As a chopped & formed jerky, it seems void of any hard bits of material and I didn't see any chunks of gristle or cartilage. It seems to be mostly all meat, except for visible bits of seasoning mixed in.

As for clean eating, there's only a thin oily-sticky film on my fingertips, but still dry enough to type on my keyboard without licking or wiping. It's nowhere near as oily as other chopped & formed jerky brands.




Snack Value

Wayne's Jerky sells this Teriyaki variety from its website at a price of $6.95 for a 4oz package. According to their website, if you buy four packages the shipping comes out to $10.70 for a total of $38.50. That works out to $2.41 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $2.41 per ounce price, it seems to provide a fair value. I'm getting a good snackability for its overall great flavor, though rubbery crumbly chewing texture. That price is considerably higher than what you'd pay for major brands of jerky in grocery stores, but I think you only get a little bit better snackability.

As a Teriyaki beef jerky, at the same $2.41 per ounce price, it's a weak value. I don't really perceive this as having a teriyaki flavor, at least nothing like the teriyaki I'm accustomed to having. There are many other beef jerky brands that offer better teriyaki flavor at the same or lower price.

Rating

I'm giving this an average rating.

This Teriyaki beef jerky from Wayne's Jerky doesn't seem to provide much teriyaki flavor, at least nothing like what I would expect to get from a Japanese restaurant or from a bottle of teriyaki sauce.

I'm sure if I compared this side by side with Wayne's Original variety, I could taste more of a teriyaki flavor, but then again, most folks are not going to do that. Instead, they're going to rip open this bag and expect it to taste like teriyaki.

Instead, it's quite similar in taste and meat consistency to the Original variety, but while I gave that variety a four-star rating on the strength of its overall flavor, I'm knocking this Teriyaki variety down another star because it doesn't really live up to its advertised flavor.

But on its own merits, it's still a snackable jerky, better than much of the other chopped & formed jerky brands, and something I can feed into face as I sit here blogging away.

For my recommended beer pairing, stick to something malty and lighter on hops, try a brown ale, perhaps a Newcastle Brown Ale, or a Moose Drool Brown Ale.

Rating: Average

Buy this online:

• http://www.waynesjerky.com/