Saturday, September 5, 2009

Perky Jerky - Original

Perky JerkyPerky Jerky is a brand of PEMS, LLC based out of Englewood, CO. It launched officially just last month.

It's claimed to be a "performance enhancing meat snack", being infused with guarana and caffeine, two popular energy supplements used in a variety of other products designed to invigorate one's body. The company says one package of Perky Jerky contains about the same caffeine as a can of energy drink.

As the story goes, the creators of this jerky were at a ski lodge, preparing for a day of skiing, when by accident some energy drink spilled into their bag of peppered beef jerky. They ate it anyways, and found it still tasted just as good as before, but a little more tender, and seemingly kept them sliding the down the slopes all day long.

Ingredients

Whole slices of beef, soy sauce, brown sugar, lemon juice, garlic powder, pepper, guarana, worcestershire sauce.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a good deal of sweet, followed quickly by a soy sauce flavor and worcestershire flavor. Overall, a lot of surface flavor intensity.

The chewing flavor starts with a more defined soy sauce and worcestershire sauce flavor, a good deal of tanginess, and some well-noticed garlic. A little bit of black pepper is noticeable too after some more chewing.

If you just evaluate this jerky for its flavor, it's very flavorful. It could almost pass for a teriyaki beef jerky, with a lot of sweet, a well noticed soy sauce, some tanginess, and a bit of pungent contrast from something in the worcestershire.

But if I had to identify the flavor that best represents this jerky, it's the combination of soy sauce and worcestershire sauce. I think the soy sauce is a little more stronger than the worcestershire, but the worcestershire is still easily noticed.

The sweetnes is very significant in this jerky, and is tasted immediately on the surface, and lasts about half-way through the chewing.

The saltiness seems to be on the high-side, even though the nutrition facts label shows a medium sodium content.

There's also a fair amount of black pepper flavor that builds up over several pieces. After eating one package, I'm getting a good black pepper aftertaste.

But I think what gives this jerky a nice little "pop" is the tanginess, which I presume comes from the lemon juice, as well as an easily noticed garlic. These two flavor components seem to add the "perky" into this jerky.

As for natural meat flavors, I don't really taste any.

Overall, this jerky has a lot of flavor intensity, and a good flavor complexity. I think this is best described as a peppered jerky, with a good deal of soy sauce and worcestershire, plus a strong sweetness. But that tanginess and garlic flavor makes this more interesting.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced to a medium thickness, and in small pieces.

This is a dry jerky, but with a lot of stickiness on the surface, perhaps making the whole jerky feel moist. The pieces are about bite-sized and don't really require tearing apart. Chewing seems varied, some being very easy, and others more stiff and a little chewy.

The chewing texture starts out feeling soft and tender, easily folding up into a more manageable chew, and breaking down with just a little bit of sucking and biting. Once chewed down to a soft mass, it has mostly a steak-like chewing texture. But it's a mixed bag, with the softer pieces being a bit more mushy, and hard pieces feeling a bit more crumbly.

This jerky appears to be quite lean, not really noticing any chunks or streaks of fat, no tendon, no gristle, but some light amounts of stringy sinews.

As for clean eating, handling these pieces leaves some stickiness on my fingertips requiring a licking and wiping on my jeans.

beef jerky

beef jerky
Snack Value

Perky Jerky sells this Original variety from its website at a price of $4.99 per 2oz package. If you bought 12 packages, the shipping cost comes to $8.66. That's a total of $68.54. That works out to a price of $2.86 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $2.86 price per ounce, this seems to provide a decent value. I'm getting a lot of snackability for its great flavor, ease in eating, and decent chewing texture. Even though that $2.86 price per ounce is much higher than what you'd pay for mass-market brands at the grocery store, I think it's a pretty good flavor.

As a "performance enhancing meat snack", at the same $2.86 price per ounce, it seems to work well also. I normally jog three times a day, once in the morning, again in the afternoon, and in the evening. I noticed myself feeling more energetic for both the afternoon and evening runs.

Rating

beef jerky nutrition dataI'm giving this a best rating.

This Original variety of beef jerky from Perky Jerky is very flavorful, with a good deal of flavor complexity. I can taste a lot of different flavors going on in here. I think this this is best described as a peppered beef jerky, but with a well-noticed soy sauce and worcestershire sauce base, and a strong sweetness.

But I really like the tanginess in this, which may come from the lemon juice ingredient. I also like the stronger garlic flavor. Those two ingredients made this jerky quite tasty for me. In fact, I think this jerky could pass as teriyaki variety, with this strong sweet, the soy sauce, the tanginess, and a pungent quality inside the worcestershire.

For the most part, it's easy to eat, but with a few pieces being more stiff and chewy, and the chewing texture seems good overall. The only negatives that stick out in my mind is the higher salt intensity, and the lack of natural meat flavors. But if you're a fan of peppered beef jerky, of which I am, I think you'll like this stuff. It tastes just like how the founders of Perky Jerky conceived it, with some sticky sweet energy drink spilling into a bag of peppered jerky.

For my recommended beer pairing, I'd go with a smoked porter.

Rating: Best

Buy this online:

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Side Effects of Guarana - for the Consumer
    Guarana
    All medicines may cause side effects, but many people have no, or minor, side effects. Check with your doctor if any of these most COMMON side effects persist or become bothersome when using Guarana:

    Anxiety; diarrhea; headache; increased urination; nausea; nervousness; shakiness; tremors; trouble sleeping; upset stomach; vomiting.

    Seek medical attention right away if any of these SEVERE side effects occur when using Guarana:
    Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); agitation; irregular heartbeat; seizures

    I'm a follower of bestbeefjerky and I like to try new products that are appealing to me but this one I did a look up of the ingredients used and the affects out way any desire to try a product that might cause me or anyone Harm!

    I agree with the last comment this is not a natural product and with all allergic reactions that could occur why would anyone take a chance!

    Jerky Fanatic!

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  3. Folks, I don't mind criticism in comments, but that first one simply copy & pasted nearly a whole article from another copyrighted source. You must write your own comment, please.

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  4. Perky Jerky tastes amazing! I ate two bags Friday night and was able to fuck the transmission out of a Cadillac

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  5. I love both Energy Drinks, and Jerky, so the moment i saw this in the "best rating" section, I just had to go and buy a bag! :D

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  6. I tried it; ate the 2 oz you get in one bag. Tastes great but not for the price that was about $6.99 with the shipping, about $3 an ounce. I felt no energy boost either so would be eating purely for the taste.

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  7. This stuff is the real deal. Tastes amazing and will jack you up big time if you eat a whole pack.

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  8. not gonna jack you up, sorry

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  9. I also went and tried some after reading this review and am now a Perky Jerky junkie. Its the best store bought brand jerky I have ever eaten. If I go back to Market Pantry/ any other major brand, it feels like I'm eating rubber.

    If Perky Jerky didn't have Guarana I would still eat it, as the flavor is amazing. It doesn't have a huge energy kick like an energy drink or 5 hour energy has, but its more of a natural, sustained energy and doesn't make you crash.

    I would recommend this jerky to any beef jerky eaters.

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  10. I received a free 2.2 ounce sample from some Perky Jerky folks who were promoting their product. I must say that I have never been much of a beef jerky fan....namely because all of the jerky I have ever tried was dehydrated and felt like I was biting into old leather that had been peppered (JACK LINKS ANYONE). I

    I figured what the heck, it's a free bag so if it is horrible, I could throw the bag away and not worry about losing any money.

    After I tried it - I went back and asked for more bags...which they politely gave me...This is what I thought Beef Jerky should be - lightly moist, good pieces of beef, and very tasty.

    My only problem is I have to go to Home Depot to buy my Perky Jerky - imagine that - going to a home improvement store to buy my snacks.

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  11. This is the best store bought brand I've ever had. Every bag was tender and super flavorful. I love every flavor in the beef variety. But my problem is that since expanding their flavors, they moved to a bigger manufacturer/co-packer or whatever you call it. Now I get a lot of dry/tough pieces. Sometimes I take one taste and throw the whole bag out.

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