Monday, September 10, 2012

Glenwood Beef Jerky - Teriyaki

glenwood beef jerky
Next in the series on Glenwood Beef Jerky is this Teriyaki variety. See my previous review of their Original and Peppered varieties.

Glenwood Beef Jerky is a brand of Glenwood Smoked Products, based out of Idaho Falls, ID. Glenwood Smoked Products has been in operation since 1961 starting out as a small meat packing facility. In 1978 they expanded into a new facility and began smoking meats and making jerky.

Today, the company makes two brands of jerky, this Glenwood line, and a Hangtown line, which I reviewed last April (click here to read the review). The Glenwood is meant to be more chewy, while the Hangtown is meant to be more soft.


Ingredients

Beef, water, seasoning (sugar, soy sauce powder, salt, hydrolyzed corn protein, monosodium glutamate, torola yeast, onion powder), garlic powder, TBHQ, BHT Citric Acid, spices extractives, brown sugar, smoked flavoring, sodium nitrite.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a beefy, lightly sweet and smoky flavor. There's a light touch of saltiness.

The chewing flavor adds more definition to the beefy, natural meat flavor, and just a little bit more saltiness.

For being marketed as a teriyaki beef jerky, I'm not sure it holds up well. I don't really taste anything that stands out as teriyaki. If I think about it, I can certainly pick up a light sweetness, and maybe something close to soy sauce, but if I just eat without thinking, this doesn't taste like teriyaki.

Otherwise, the flavors that define this jerky is largely the beefy flavor, with the light sweetness and smokiness. I say "beefy" flavor because it has a fatty, oily flavor mixed in, as opposed to just the natural meat flavor.

The level of saltiness in this feels light.

To sum it up, this is a very mild flavored jerky, suitable for all taste sensitivities with little seasoning and little else to mention. It doesn't seem to taste like teriyaki. It's still rather plain tasting, more in line with regular, original flavored jerky.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced thin, and in medium sized slabs.

This is a dry jerky with a mostly dry surface feel, except maybe a touch of oiliness. They are very flexible, bending like sheets of soft rubber. Biting off chunks seems fairly easy, though may take a little gnawing to do. Chewing is similar, rather chewy.

The chewing texture starts out with a fair amount of chewing resistance, requiring some effort to chew down. There's a little bit of a waxy surface feel that melts away after a few seconds. Once it starts to chew down and get soft, it takes on a meaty feel, but never really feeling like steak.

I can see small streaks of fat on most of pieces, they add some fatty flavor to the meat, and don't get in the way of chewing. I don't see any gristle or tendon, and there's a little bit of stringiness here and there. Overall, it's a very meaty jerky.

In terms of clean eating, it's mostly clean, leaving no residue on my fingers, and no bits of meat or seasoning falling on my lap.

teriyaki beef jerky
teriyaki beef jerky
Snack Value

Glenwood Smoke Products sells this Teriyaki variety from its website at a price of $11.99 for a 10oz package. If you bought a couple bags, the shipping would come out to around $4.50. That works out to a price of $1.42 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $1.42 per ounce price, this is a decent value. I'm getting a satisfactory overall flavor, good meat consistency, and an average chewing texture. Compared to major brands of jerky sold at grocery stores, this is much less expensive, but seems to offer a similar or slightly lower snackability.

As a teriyaki beef jerky, at the same $1.42 per ounce price, it's a fair value. I don't get much teriyaki flavor at all, but considering it's priced lower than the major brands of jerky, you're pretty much getting what you pay for.

Rating

I'm giving this a fair rating.

This Teriyaki variety from Glenwood Beef Jerky doesn't seem to provide much of a teriyaki flavor. It has only a light sweetness, not much of a soy sauce flavor, and none of the other classic teriyaki components such as mirin wine, sake, and ginger. It's actually quite light on flavor with the beefy flavor, light sweetness and smokiness generating what taste it offers.

The meat consistency is good and the chewing texture is decent. You're just not going to get the teriyaki flavor this package claims to have. Even on it's own merits, this jerky's flavor is not as good as Glenwood's Original flavor.

It's very mild tasting jerky, suitable for the most sensitive palates.

My recommended beer pairing for this, go with any of the brands of Christmas ales or Winter ales for the bit of spice.

Rating: Fair

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