Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Glenwood Beef Jerky - Hot Teriyaki

glenwood beef jerky
Continuing in the series on Glenwood Beef Jerky is this Hot Teriyaki variety. See my previous reviews of Glenwood Beef Jerky.

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, seasonings, brown sugar, smoke flavoring, sodium nitrite. Dipped in potassium sorbate.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a lightly sweet and smoky flavor. There's a light soy sauce flavor noticeable.

The chewing flavor starts with a bit more sweet, while a faint spicy heat becomes detectable. The soy sauce flavor picks up a tad, and it seems to resemble something more like a teriyaki.

For being marketed as "Hot Teriyaki", I suppose it lives up to those words, but not in a strong way. First, it's not hot, though I do pick up touches of heat. It still registers as mild on my personal heat scale, though I could imagine others might see it as a little more spicy than that. But also, the teriyaki flavor is represented in a light degree. It does taste like teriyaki in the traditional, Japanese sense of the word, but is rather light.

Otherwise, the flavors that seem to define this jerky most of all, is the sweetness. About half-way into the chewing, that sweetness begins to take shape as teriyaki. The soy sauce comes in and merges with the sweet. Here and there, I can taste faint touches of ginger, and even a faint stroke of tanginess. But after all that, what becomes next most noticeable is a natural meat flavor. Finally, there's a light bit of heat in the background.

The smokiness is mostly noticeable up front, upon putting a piece into my mouth. After that, it tends to get lost in other flavors.

The level of saltiness feels light.

Overall, this is more of a mild version of a hot teriyaki beef jerky. It generates a little bit of heat, but it still seems tolerable for people who don't eat hot foods. The teriyaki seems to taste like real teriyaki, but it doesn't quite step up to dominate the palate.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced into small to medium sized slabs, and sliced thin to medium.

This is a dry jerky with a dry surface feel. They have a lot of flexibility, feeling rubbery. Biting off pieces and chewing requires some effort.

The chewing texture starts out feeling like a slab of pliable rubber. With a few labored chews, it starts to break apart into chunks, and eventually softens up and feels somewhat slimy, though not meaty. Once chewed down to a soft mass, it doesn't feel at all like real meat, but something soft, slimy, and rubbery.

I do see some bits and streaks of fat on some slabs, though I don't see any gristle or tendon. I do encounter a lot of stringiness in the chewing, some of which remains in my mouth as unchewable wads.

As for clean eating, it's very clean. I find no residue on my fingers, no bits and pieces falling off.

hot teriyaki beef jerky

hot teriyaki beef jerky
Snack Value

While I don't see this Hot Teriyaki listed on Glenwood's website, it's something you may have to call them on the phone for a special order. The company generally sells their jerky in 10oz packages at a price of $11.99. 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. While I'm getting a satisfactory overall flavor, good meat consistency, and a fair to average chewing texture, it's priced considerably less than major brands of jerky sold in grocery stores.

As a hot 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, and a weak level of spicy heat, but again, this is priced considerably less than competing brands, that this becomes a value worth considering if gotta have a hot teriyaki.

Rating

I'm giving this a fair rating.

This Hot Teriyaki beef jerky from Glenwood Beef Jerky delivers a weak level of heat, not quite strong enough to register above mild on my charts, but also, has a weak representation of teriyaki, even though it tends to taste like real teriyaki. This jerky doesn't seem to provide much else aside from a light smokiness and a light natural meat flavor.

I didn't care much for the chewing texture, feeling rubbery, and then chewing down into something not quite meat-like. I found bites that seemed to require a lot of chewing effort, and then I realized I wasn't get a lot of hot teriyaki flavor in return. It got to where the effort and the rubbery chewing exceeded the flavor reward.

For a jerky marketed as "hot", it actually seems rather mild. Albeit, I know that I'm quite heat tolerant, but then again, only hot food lovers are going to buy a jerky with a red "hot" sticker on it.

Rating: Fair

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