Friday, April 6, 2012

PA Dutch Style Beef Jerky - Peppered

pa dutch style beef jerky
PA Dutch Style Beef Jerky is the name Lisa Heinemann uses when marketing her own homemade beef jerky on eBay. "I didn't give my jerky a brand name as of yet", she says. "But you may use my eBay title".

Heinemann has been making jerky since 1992 but just started selling it on eBay last year. It's all made fresh to order, and she offers seven flavors in all. I only have two of her flavors at this time, including this "Peppered" and her "Some Like it Hot".

She describes "Dutch Style" as meaning "slightly sweeter and not as salty as some". Her jerky is all preservative-free and hand-trimmed. Her Hickory and Applejack varieties are real wood smoked over hickory and apple wood chips.

Ingredients

None provided

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a black pepper flavor and a light sweetness. There is a little bit of saltiness coming in soon after.

The chewing flavor starts with a more defined black pepper flavor, and then a slightly increased sweet and salty.

For being marketed as "Peppered", it certainly fits the bill. I taste a good deal of black pepper flavor, but I don't see this as being overwhelming. It has a freshly cracked flavor, and there's plenty of peppercorn bits to be seen. There's even a some of heat in this, what I would rank as being medium on my personal heat scale (level 3 out of 5).

Otherwise, the flavors that seem to define this jerky overall is the combination of black pepper and sweet. Both hit my taste buds immediately and continue to dominate the palate throughout the chewing. The saltiness seems to range between light and moderate.

I don't really pick up any natural meat flavors.

Overall, what you're going to taste in this is a one-two punch of spicy black pepper and decadent sweet, with a light-to-moderate saltiness.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced against the grain into small to medium sized pieces, and sliced medium thick.

It's a dry jerky with a sticky surface feel. They have some flexibility, and will crack open if bent far enough. Biting off chunks seems easy to do, while chewing is a little more chewy.

The chewing texture starts out with a light bit of chewing resistance, but then breaks down into a little bits and chunks. Throughout the chewing, they never mesh together to chew like real meat, and it's chewy enough to tire my jaws fairly quickly. Overall, it's like chewing small chunks of chewy, sticky, gooey meat.

I can spot tiny bits of fat on these pieces, but for the most part it's seems very lean. A couple pieces revealed small streaks of gristle, but I didn't feel them in the chewing. No stringiness that I could find, and nothing unchewable noticed.

In terms of clean eating, my fingers picked a little bit of the stickiness from these pieces, but not enough to warrant a licking and wiping before touching the keyboard.

peppered beef jerky

peppered beef jerky
Snack Value

PA Dutch Style Beef Jerky is sold on eBay at a price of $24.25 for a one pound package. Shipping is free. That works out to a price of $1.52 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $1.52 per ounce price, this is a good value. It's priced considerably less than the major brands of jerky sold in grocery stores, and seems to offer a slightly better snackability in terms of flavor and meat consistency.

As a black peppered beef jerky, at the same $1.52 per ounce price, it's an excellent value. Again, priced considerably less than the major brands of jerky, I found a strong and fresh taste of black pepper on every piece, enough to produce a medium level of heat.

Rating

I'm giving this an average rating.

This Peppered variety from PA Dutch Style Beef Jerky offers a lot of freshly cracked black pepper flavor over a snackable combination of sweet and salty chewing.

While the trio of pepper, sweet, and salty seems to generate a fair amount of snackable flavor, I wasn't able to pick up much else, particularly no natural meat flavors. The meat consistency seems good in that I found very little fat and nothing stringy or unchewable, it still didn't quite feel like I was chewing a real piece of meat. It feel rather gooey and sticky, perhaps due to the layer of sweetness.

However, it's still a worthy buy when you consider the low price point of $24.25 for a whole pound with free shipping. If you're looking for a great value, this seems to offer a better flavor than the low-budget jerky brands, and it's made fresh to order and delivered to your door.

My recommended beer pairing, go with a lighter bodied pale ale, try the Kona Firerock Pale Ale or a Widmer Drifter Pale Ale.

Rating: Average

Buy this online:
  • No longer in production!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks Steve, for yout honest opinion, I value it much! Always room for improvement. Now set to work on the weak points, and make a better product.

    Lisa Heinemann

    ReplyDelete