Jimmy's Sticky Jerky - Sticky Fire

Finishing up with the series on Jimmy's Sticky Jerky is this Sticky Fire variety. See my original review of their Sticky Sweet beef jerky, and their Sticky Heat.

Jimmy's Sticky Jerky is a new jerky brand launched in September 2012. It's the creation of Jim Nielsen, based out of Hermosa Beach, CA. Nielsen claims his love for jerky goes back to when he was just a fetus, and his mother had been snacking on the stuff while she was pregnant. Just 10 ten years ago, he started making his own jerky, and was encouraged to go into business by his closest friends.

This Sticky Fire variety builds on top of its Sticky Heat brethren of red, jalapeno, and habanero peppers, and adds ghost pepper chiles to create an even hotter experience.

Ingredients

Beef (top round), soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, ginger, garlic, liquid smoke, jalapeno, habanero and ghost peppers, seasonings and spices.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a moderate sweetness mixed with a strong chile pepper flavor. The burn begins to build right away

The chewing brings in a natural meat flavor along with a slightly increased saltiness. The ginger is noticeable. Towards the latter part of chewing the soy sauce becomes faintly noticeable too.

For being marketed as "Sticky Fire", this seems to hold up. It's quite hot, I'd rate this on my personal heat scale as "hot" (level 5 out of 5). It's not tongue-piercing hot, it's still just tame enough that hot food lovers can continuously feed more pieces into their face, which is what you'd want for snacking. As for "Sticky", it's a little sticky, but not really that much.

Otherwise, the flavors that define this jerky is largely the blend of chile pepper seasonings mixed with a sweetness. But there's a light to moderate level of ginger that creates a nice compliment. The natural meat flavors make a light appearance, and then a very light soy sauce flavor towards the end.

The level of saltiness in this feels moderate.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced into chunks and strips, some of which are bite-sized, and others enough for two bites. These are all sliced thick.

This is a semi-moist jerky with a semi-moist, lightly sticky surface feel. These pieces are quite tender and flexible. Chewing is largely easy.

The chewing texture starts out feeling quite tender, offering little resistance. They break apart with the first chew and take on a soft, meaty feel. It takes little time to chew down to a soft mass, and by that time it feels meaty, some of which is steak-like, but others more mushy.

I do see some small pieces of fat on a few pieces, but no visible signs of tendon or gristle. I felt some significant stringiness in most bites I took, resulting in a lot of unchewable tissues.

As for clean eating, my fingertips pick up a little bit of sticky, oily film, along with some bits of chile pepper seasoning, some of which requires a licking and wiping before touching the keyboard, others do not.

Snack Value

Jimmy's Sticky Jerky sells this Sticky Fire variety from its website at a price of $17.99 for 3-pack of 2.2oz packages. If you bought 3 of those of 3-packs, shipping comes out to just $5.00. That works out to a price of $2.98 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $2.98 per ounce price, it's a decent value. I'm getting a great overall flavor, a good meat consistency, and good chewing texture. Compared to other gourmet brands, it's considerably more costly, but still a little better overall than most.

As a hot beef jerky, spiced with red, jalapeno, habanero, and ghost peppers, it's a decent value as well. I get lots of heat, but also a good deal of chile pepper flavors.

Rating

I'm giving this a best rating.

This Sticky Fire variety from Jimmy's Sticky Jerky generates a high degree of burn, hot enough for spicy food lovers to savor, and much too hot for the general public. But it gives out a delicious chile pepper flavor blend, contrasted by a noticeable ginger, sweetness, and natural meat flavor.

It's much like the Sticky Heat variety I reviewed earlier, but far more hot with more of the chile pepper flavors. It's that extra douse of chile flavors that made all the difference in elevating this to a top rating.

The meat consistency is still much like the other varieties from Jimmy's, with its thick chunks and strips of beef, feeling soft, moist and tender, and sometimes mushy. But it also has the issue with stringiness and the wads of unchewable tissues. However, I couldn't help liking the flavor so much that I opted to look past it.

Rating: Best

Buy this online:

• http://www.jimmysstickyjerky.com/