Thursday, September 12, 2013

Jeff's Famous Jerky - Sweet Smokin; BBQ

jeffs famous jerky
The newest flavor from Jeff's Famous Jerky is this Sweet & Smokin' BBQ. Read our reviews of other flavors from Jeff's Famous Jerky.

Jeff's Famous Jerky officially opened for business in 2010 and is owned and operated by Jeff's Famous Foods, Inc., led by founder Jeff Richards and CFO Mike Aggarwal, out of Mission Viejo, CA.  The company offers nine flavor of jerky, all hormone-free, American beef, without added MSG or preservatives.

This new Sweet & Smokin' BBQ is described by the company as "Down home BBQ with melt-in-your-mouth tenderness. If you like classic, sweet, smoky, and tangy BBQ flavors... you will love our original recipe BBQ jerky!"

Ingredients

Beef, brown sugar, ketchup, worcestershire sauce, salt, citric acid, balsamic vinegar, seasoned rice vinegar, liquid smoke, orange juice concentrate, unsulphured blackstrap molasses, lemon juice, dijon mustard, black pepper, cayenne pepper, granulated onion, granulated garlic, chili powder

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a lightly sweet, barbecue sauce flavor, along with hints of smoke flavor.

The chewing brings in a more defined barbecue sauce, more rich and tangy, and slightly spicy.

For being marketed as "Sweet & Smokin' BBQ" it seems to fit the billing. I get a very sweet barbecue sauce in the chewing, though lightly smoky. The Barbecue sauce tastes very rich and tangy, heavily sweet. The spiciness is toned down to a moderate level, there's little bit there, but not enough to be called "hot".

Otherwise, the barbecue sauce is largely the dominant flavor of this jerky. It's a very flavorful sauce with a lot of unique characteristics. Aside from what I've already described it as above, I can also pick out touches of citrus and bits of the black pepper.

The barbecue sauce flavor is heavy enough that it's hard to pick out the natural meat flavors. There's hints of it towards the latter part of chewing as the sauce wears off.

In short, the ingredients all combine to create largely a barbecue sauced jerky without any other dominant dimensions. It's a very tangy, sweet, citrusy, and bold sauce that works really well with jerky.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced into strips and chunks.

This is mostly a dry jerky with a slightly sticky surface feel. Some smaller pieces are more semi-moist. Biting off chunks seems easy to do, while chewing overall is easy to moderate.

The chewing texture starts out feeling tender, offering little to no chewing resistance. It quickly chews down soft and takes on a meaty feel. Once chewed all the way down to a soft mass, it feels meaty, but more soft, maybe like chopped steak or hamburger.

I don't see much fat on these pieces nor any gristle or tendon. I do encounter a fair amount of stringiness, some of which mats down to an unchewable wad.

As for clean eating, it's largely clean, with just faint bits of sticky residue on my fingers, still clean enough to touch my keyboard.


bbq beef jerky

bbq beef jerky

Snack Value

Jeff's Famous Jerky sells this Sweet & Smokin' BBQ beef jerky from its website at a price of $74.95 for a 12-pack, at 3oz per pack. With shipping & handling added, it works out to a price of $2.44 per ounce.

Compared to national brands of jerky sold in stores, it's a good value. It's priced a little higher, but still offers much better flavor, better meat consistency, and better chewing.

As a BBQ flavored beef jerky, at the same $2.44 per ounce price, it's also a good value. I'm getting a very easily identifiable barbecue sauce flavor, and a very tasty one at that, much more than what I'd get from the national brands.

Rating

I'm giving this a best rating.

This Sweet & Smokin' BBQ beef jerky from Jeff's Famous Jerky offers up a very rich, tangy, sweet barbecue sauce flavor that made my palate come alive. It has some citrus flavors and a light touch of spiciness to give it a bold kick. There's a noticeable smokiness to it as well, but the rich barbecue sauce flavor seems to grab my attention so much that it becomes an afterthought.

This jerky is also easy to chew, tender, maybe just slightly moist, that it helps bring out the richness of the sauce. The meat consistency seemed mostly all meat, while the chewing was overall good, perhaps slightly mushy in some places.

I wasn't able to get much of the natural meat flavors in this, only light amounts towards the latter part of chewing. But I liked the barbecue sauce so much, and I thought the company did a great job of getting the finer characteristics of the sauce to show through after the dehydration, that I gave it a best rating.

Rating: Best

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