Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Buffalo Bill's - Dead Meat - Troi Oi Teriyaki

Buffalo Bill's - Dead Meat - Troi Oi Teriyaki"Dead Meat" is a new line of jerky from Buffalo Bill's sold only in one pound bags. The Buffalo Bill's brand is owned by Lebanon, PA-based Choo Choo R Snacks, Inc, a meat snack company that's been in business since 1990.

Paul Squires, President of the company, says this new line is their answer to all the other one-pound jerky offerings hitting the marketplace. The one-pound bags seems to be a way to reach the dedicated meat snacker with a lower price-per-ounce, but at a cost of meat quality as well. This particular Dead Meat line is no different, with Squires describing it as being similar to their Premium line, but a little more chewy.

The company plays up the concept of "mass quantities" with masculine graphics, depicting their trademark Buffalo Bill character decked out with military garb, holding machine guns and hand grenades. Even the words "Dead Meat" is an in-your-face way of describing beef jerky. This ain't politically correct stuff here, but then again, we're talking about a full pound of chew.

Ingredients

Beef, teriyaki sauce, brown sugar, water, garlic powder, black pepper, onion powder, liquid smoke, sodium nitrite.

Sprayed with potassium sorbate solution.

Taste

The tastes I pick up from the surface of these pieces is a slight sweet flavor, and some teriyaki aroma wafting around in my mouth. There's also a slight smoky flavor. Moving into the chewing, I pick up some natural meat flavors, and some saltiness.

Overall, it's a bland tasting jerky, with mostly the natural meat flavors that stand out. I do pick up a teriyaki flavor, but it's a light flavor that fades away well before the swallowing. Though I did find a piece here and there with more concentrated teriyaki flavor, most of the pieces are light on teriyaki taste.

The natural meat flavors are easily detected, but not a strong flavor. I tend to taste it more if I let a piece sit in my mouth for several seconds, and then start chewing. It has a slightly stale taste, with a few pieces here and there tasting more stale. Overall, it's still edible, but clearly not fresh tasting.

By comparison, the company's "Snafu Spicy" variety, which is also part of the Dead Meat line, has enough red pepper and sugar flavor to help mask the stale meat flavor. Because this Troi Oi Teriyaki variety is light on teriyaki taste, the stale meat flavor stands out more.

In fact, that Snafu Spicy seems to be more sweet than this Troi Oi Teriyaki. You'd think that with teriyaki, you'd get plenty of sweet flavor. And in fact, I do pick up a good deal of sweet taste in this, but it still seems like the Snafu Spicy was more sweet.

The salt flavor in this tastes light. The garlic and onion is also detectable, but in small enough amounts to sit in the background and enhance the overall flavor.

Otherwise, the dominant flavor of this jerky is the natural meat flavors, albeit a slightly stale meat flavor, with the light teriyaki flavor being second strongest, with the garlic and onion background being third strongest.

Meat Consistency

These appear to be slices of whole meat, sliced in average thickness, and in small to medium sized pieces

It's slightly moist jerky, but what I'd classify overall as dry. Some pieces are more moist. Chewy is perhaps a good way to describe the meat consistency. Tearing apart a piece does require a bit of effort, but not too bad overall. If you eat several pieces of this stuff, your jaws will get a work out.

The chewing texture has a steak-like character, but clearly more chewy than a real steak. It's got the fibrous quality like a steak, but with a tad bit of elasticity to make it chewy.

It's very clean jerky, leaving no residue on my fingers and no fragments on my lap.

But it's not necessarily a lean jerky. Several pieces had some visible bits of fat to some lesser or greater degree. I also found a decent amount of pieces with gristle. In fact, I found one small piece that was mostly all tendon, and spat out completely.




Snack Value

Buffalo Bill's sell this Troi Oi Teriyaki variety from their website at a price of $17.99 for a 16 ounce bag. That works out to price of $1.12 per ounce, putting this into the average price range, but down towards the cheaper end.

For general jerky snacking purposes, it presents a decent value. While it's not a great tasting jerky, it's decent, and the meat consistency is fair, the lower price point is what gives this any snacking value. The taste is snackable enough that I did find myself reaching for more, but not necessarily inspired to eat more.

As a teriyaki variety, it's a weak value. Even at this lower price, it's not much of a value because I don't get a lot of teriyaki taste. There is some noticeable teriyaki flavor, but if I were a teriyaki jerky lover, I'd feel as if I were stuck with a one pound bag of teriyaki inadequacy. Interestingly, this might be a better value in smaller quantities, just so you won't end up with several ounces of uneaten jerky.

Rating

I'm giving this a fair rating.

In searching for this jerky's best quality, it's snackable. But it's not very snackable. While it did have me reaching for more, I didn't feel inspired to eat more. The flavor was decent enough to be snackworthy, but not good enough to crave.

There is some identifiable teriyaki taste in this, but it's light and doesn't really provide a dominant flavor. That's not necessarily a game breaker if a jerky can provide plenty of natural meat flavors. And while this jerky does provide some of those flavors, it's slightly on the stale side, with a few pieces having a stronger "turned" taste. Perhaps if the teriyaki was stronger, sweeter, and tastier, it could mask some of that old flavor.

The meat consistency wasn't all that great either, though still not too bad overall. The pieces of fat, which were mostly small bits, I could tolerate and actually enjoy. But the gristle and tendon is something I can't tolerate much of. Again, had the teriyaki flavor been stronger and better, it could have been enough to make me overlook the meat consistency.

But keep in mind this jerky designed for its price point, not necessarily to please the discriminating palate. But even at its price point, the taste and consistency of this jerky leaves me feeling uninspired to eat the rest of the contents. Considering you're buying a full pound of this stuff, you could end up eating only a few ounces, and allowing the rest to go bad. That may actually hurt it's snack value.

But then again, that's why we have dogs.

As for that beer recommendation, just a simple, normal brown ale would taste good with this.

Rating: Fair

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