Monday, July 9, 2012

Glenwood Beef Jerky - Original

glenwood beef jerky
Glenwood Beef Jerky is a brand of Glenwood Smoked Products, based out of Idaho Falls, ID. Glenwood Smoked Products has been in operation since 1961 starting out as a small meat packing facility. In 1978 they expanded into a new facility and began smoking meats and making jerky.

Today, the company makes two brands of jerky, this Glenwood line, and a Hangtown line, which I reviewed last April (click here to read the review). The Glenwood is meant to be more chewy, while the Hangtown is meant to be more soft.

The Glenwood line of jerky includes this Original, along with a Teriyaki, Hot Teriyaki, and Peppered, which I will be reviewing later.


Ingredients

Beef, brown sugar, water, hydrolyzed corn protein seasoning, soy sauce, liquid hickory smoke, spices, monosodium glutamate, sodium nitrite.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a smoky flavor, followed by a light sweetness and light meat flavor, and a touch of saltiness.

The chewing flavor reveals more of the natural meat flavor mixed with a light bit of fatty flavor, and perhaps a touch more sweet.

Otherwise, the flavor that seems to define this jerky the most is the natural meat flavor with the smokiness and light sweetness adding some additional character. The seasonings and spices in this are very light, including the saltiness. Of what seasonings and spices I can pick up, the black pepper is perhaps the most noticeable, leaving just a faint footprint in the back of my mouth.

Even though the natural meat flavors are the most noticeable flavor in this, it's still not a strong flavor. It's just that there isn't any other flavor significant enough to get in the way.

Overall, it's a mild tasting jerky, offering what might perhaps be more like an old-fashioned style flavor, with a light but noticeable natural meat flavor, graced with some smoky and sweet, and faint bits of seasonings.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced thin, and in medium sized slabs.

This is a dry jerky with a mostly dry surface feel, except maybe a touch of oiliness. They are very flexible, bending like sheets of soft rubber. Biting off chunks seems fairly easy, though may take a little gnawing to do. Chewing is similar, rather chewy.

The chewing texture starts out with a fair amount of chewing resistance, requiring some effort to chew down. There's a little bit of a waxy surface feel that melts away after a few seconds. Once it starts to chew down and get soft, it takes on a meaty feel, but never really feeling like steak.

I can see small streaks of fat on most of pieces, they add some fatty flavor to the meat, and don't get in the way of chewing. I don't see any gristle or tendon, and there's a little bit of stringiness here and there. Overall, it's a very meaty jerky.

In terms of clean eating, it's mostly clean, leaving no residue on my fingers, and no bits of meat or seasoning falling on my lap.

original beef jerky
beef jerky
Snack Value

Glenwood Smoke Products sells this Original variety from its website at a price of $11.99 for a 10oz package. If you bought a couple bags, the shipping would come out to around $4.50. That works out to a price of $1.42 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $1.42 per ounce price, this is a great value. I'm getting a good overall flavor, good meat consistency, and an average chewing texture. Compared to major brands of jerky sold at grocery stores, this is much less expensive, but seems to offer a similar or slightly better snackability.

Rating

I'm giving this an average rating.

This Original variety from Glenwood Beef Jerky offers a mild flavor, with just a touch of black pepper, through a light natural meat flavor graced with some smokiness and sweet.

It's not going to wow you nor knock your socks off, but it does seem to provide that old fashioned style beef jerky experience that seems to be missing these days. It does manage to generate a fair amount of snackability through its smoky meat flavor and light sweetness, but compared to the hundreds of other brands I've reviewed, I couldn't find much that elevated this above the average lot of jerky.

And while I found the meat consistency to be good overall, I wasn't impressed with the chewing texture. It wasn't that it was chewy, but it didn't give me that meaty, steak-like chew.

A good beer to pair this with, try a lighter flavored pale ale, perhaps the Stone Levitation Ale or the Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale.

Rating: Average

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