Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Wilderness Jerky Outlet - Honey Barbeque Smoked Wild Boar

wilderness jerky outletNext in the series on Wilderness Jerky Outlet is this Honey Barbeque Smoked Wild Boar jerky. Read my review of their Smoked Wild Boar.

Wilderness Jerky Outlet is a brand of Wilderness Jerky Outlet, Inc. of St. Johns, MI. It's an actual store where you walk in and buy a variety of smoked meats including jerky, meat sticks, sausages, smoked salmon, and a few other things. But they also have a website where you can buy their products online.

The package label on this Smoked Wild Boar goes on to say, "Wild Boar from ferral swine". This particular wild boar jerky was manufactured by Michigan Brands, Inc., a company that makes jerky for a lot of other Michigan-based jerky companies.

Ingredients

Wild boar, dry honey flavoring (composed of sugar, salt, onion and garlic powder, smoke flavoring, molasses, monosodium glutamate, spices, paprika, citric acid, spice extractives), sodium nitrite.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a light sweetness followed quickly by a light smokiness. I can also start tasting that molasses and faint garlic & onion seasoning.

The chewing flavor starts with a natural meat flavor, a bit more sweetness, and a touch of spiciness. A light saltiness is noticeable too.

For being labeled as Honey Barbeque Smoked Wild Boar it seems to live up to that. First, it has a good deal of sweetness that really comes through in the chewing, and there seems to be a mild barbeque sauce flavor too. The smokiness is not all that noticeable, I only encountered a bit of it off the surface flavors.

The barbecue sauce flavor is rather mild, and not really being the bold flavor-rich taste that I expect to get from a bottle of barbecue sauce. It's mostly defined by a molasses flavor and a light seasoning of garlic & onion. But nonetheless, it does resemble barbecue sauce, just somewhat bland.

The natural meat flavors are noticable, but not as much as compared to the company's Smoked Wild Boar I reviewed last week. That had a stronger, more easily noticeable natural meat flavor, whereas in this Honey Barbeque much of its flavor is overshadowed by the thicker sweetness and barbecue flavors.

Likewise, the saltiness is much lighter too, almost barely noticeable.

Overall, what you're going to notice in this mostly the honey barbecue flavors, stronger on the sweet than the barbecue, with a somewhat bland tasting barbecue sauce. The natural meat flavors are noticeable, but overshadowed by the heavier sweet and barbecue. Very little saltiness to identify.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced into thick chunks and strips of about 2 to 3 to inches in length.

This is a moist jerky, with a wet surface feel. The strips don't have much flexibility in that any amount of bending will cause it to crack open. Biting off chunks is relatively easy, and chewing seems relatively easy also.

The chewing texture starts out feeling like a cold chunk of meat, not stiff, but not soft, but much like real meat. It doesn't offer much chewing resistance, breaking down right away. It only takes about 10 seconds of chewing until its down to a soft mass, and at that point it chews like a real piece of pork, like a thoroughly cooked pork chop.

Most of these pieces have visible chunks of fat of smaller or greater degree. I did actually find one piece with some crunchy gristly chunks, but very little stringiness.

As for clean eating, it's leaves behind a lot of water, oil, and stickiness on my fingers, requires a finger-licking with each handling before touching my keyboard.

honey barbecue wild boar jerky

wild boar jerky
Snack Value

Wilderness Jerky Outlet sells this Honey Barbeque Smoked Wild Boar from its website at a price of $9.25 for a 4oz package. I bought several other of their jerky varieties and sizes for a total of 32oz at $62.00. They waive the shipping if you buy over $50.00. That worked out to $1.94 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $1.94 per ounce price, it seems to provide a decent value. I'm getting a low amount of snackability for its overall sweet but bland flavor, good meat consistency, and good chewing texture. That's close to what you'd pay for the major brands of jerky at grocery stores, and this seems to offer a similar snackability.

As a honey barbecue wild boar jerky, at the same $1.94 price per ounce, it's a decent value. I'm getting a lot of sweet and a somewhat bland tasting barbecue sauce flavor, along with a light natural meat flavor. Most brands of wild boar jerky are priced much higher than this, so it's actually a good deal for wild boar, but I would want more natural meat flavor, and the barbecue sauce flavor isn't all that great.

Rating

I'm giving this a fair rating.

This Honey Barbeque Smoked Wild Boar from Wilderness Jerky Outlet offers a lot of sweetness and an OK barbecue sauce flavor, along with a light natural meat flavor. The barbecue sauce flavor is more weighted towards the molasses and less on the spices to where it tastes rather bland.

Compared to the company's Smoked Wild Boar I reviewed last week, this has much less natural meat flavor, perhaps being overshadowed by the stronger sweetness and barbecue. Even the saltiness is much more light, which only seems to strengthen its bland character.

To sum it up, what we have is a wild boar jerky with only a light natural meat flavor with only a touch of smokiness, a bland barbecue flavor, and very little saltiness to taste. There just isn't any great flavor in this.

Otherwise, the meat consistency and chewing texture are similar to the Smoked Wild Boar, and is probably this jerky's best qualities.

My recommended beer pairing for this, go with a simple IPA, like the Stone IPA or the Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA. The lighter malt won't interfere with the stonger sweet, while the hops will bring out more of the flavor.

Rating: Fair

Buy this online:
  • Update: Dec 19, 2012, this company appears to be out of business now.

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