Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Snow's Beef Jerky - Regular

snows beef jerkySnow's Beef Jerky is based in Peru, IN, ran by a guy named Lane Shelton who's been making it under this brand for the past 15 years.

They offer four flavors at this time, but have plans to introduce several others soon, including many other varieties of hot. In addition to this Regular, they have Teriyaki, Hot, and Hickory. The only other flavor I have is the Hot, which I'll be reviewing later.

Ingredients

None provided.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a saltiness, followed soon by a soy sauce flavor.

The chewing flavor starts with a slightly increased saltiness and a more defined soy sauce, with a touch of sweet.

After several pieces, it seems the overall flavor of this jerky is largely represented by the soy sauce, but tempered with a light touch of sweetness most notable in the chewing. There's also a light natural meat flavor, but it's only noticeable towards the latter end of chewing after much of soy sauce has worn off. Some pieces have tiny bits of fat that kicks in some additional flavor, but just a little bit.

The saltiness in this is not that strong, I'd rate it at a medium level of intensity.

I want to say that I'm getting faint bursts of ginger, it's so subtle that I can't really confirm. It could be garlic too.

Overall this is simple tasting jerky relying mostly on soy sauce for 90% of its flavor, with the other 10% being mostly sweet and some natural meat flavors, and then tiny fragments of some other spice.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced into strips of medium thickness, and in lengths varying from two to four inches.

This is mostly a dry jerky with dry surface feel, but a smaller set of these pieces chew and feel semi-moist. For the most part, these pieces have a good deal of flexibility, being able to bend all the way back on themselves with minimal cracking. Biting off chunks seems easy to do, while chewing is somewhat easy.

The chewing texture starts off feeling pliable but still having a little bit of initial chewing resistance. But they break apart fairly easily and chew down to a soft mass without much effort. At that point, it has a meaty, steak-like feel, although I found a few pieces that seemed to be a little on the mushy side.

Several of these pieces have some tiny bits and streaks of fat, while a few have larger streaks. I found no streaks of gristle or tendon, and only a minimal degree of stringiness. Otherwise, no unchewable tissues.

In terms of clean eating, my fingers pick up a fine film of oil, but still dry enough to type on my keyboard without licking and wiping.

regular beef jerky

snows beef jerky
Snack Value

Snow's Beef Jerky sells this Regular variety from its website at a price of $12.00 for a 5oz package. If you buy two packages, sent to Southern California, shipping costs come to $7.50 for a total of $31.50. That works out to $3.15.

For general jerky snacking purposes at the $3.15 per ounce price, it's a weak value. I get a basic level of snackability for a satisfactory flavor though a good meat consistency and decent chewing texture. But that price is quite a bit higher than what the major brands of jerky sell for in grocery stores, yet doesn't provide much better snackability.

Rating

I'm giving this an average rating.

This Regular variety from Snow's Beef Jerky provides mostly a soy sauce flavor but with a lightly noticeable sweetness in the chewing. Aside from that, there really isn't much else to taste aside from a light natural meat flavor that becomes noticeable in the latter end of chewing.

If anything, the meat consistency and chewing texture are this jerky's best characteristics. It's has a nice balance between easy eating and jerky chewiness, and still gives off a steak-like feel.

But flavorwise, this is a very simple tasting jerky that ends up feeling one-dimensional with much of its weight on soy sauce. It still generates enough interest to keep my snack habits placated, but doesn't provide anything beyond that. Even despite it's better meat consistency, it's hard for me to consider this above average when comparing it to the 230+ brands of jerky I reviewed thus far.

For my recommended beer pairing, I'd go with a nutty brown ale, which should add a nice complimentary taste to this jerky's light natural meat flavor. Go with the Rogue Hazelnut Brown or the Abita Pecan Harvest Ale.

Rating: Average

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