Jimmy's Sticky Jerky - Sticky Sweet

Jimmy's Sticky Jerky is a new jerky brand launched in September 2012. It's the creation of Jim Nielsen, based out of Hermosa Beach, CA.

Nielsen claims his love for jerky goes back to when he was just a fetus, and his mother had been snacking on the stuff while she was pregnant. Just 10 ten years ago, he started making his own jerky, and was encouraged to go into business by his closest friends.

The concept of "sticky jerky" is based on the stickiness of the marinade Nielsen uses. He makes all the jerky himself, trimming, slicing, and packaging the stuff. He currently sells it at farmers markets and a handful of local stores around Hermosa Beach.

Ingredients

Beef (top round), soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, garlic, liquid smoke, seasonings and spices.

Taste

The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a lot of sweetness, but mixed with a light soy sauce. A tanginess comes in soon, along with a noticeable black pepper and light bit of ginger.

The chewing starts with an increased ginger and increased tanginess. The ginger builds up strength, tasting fresh ground, and becomes more dominant. There's a light natural meat flavor going on.

For being marketed as "Sticky Jerky" and "Sticky Sweet", it kinda lives up to that billing. There's some stickiness in handling these pieces, but it's mostly light to moderate, and nowhere near being the most sticky handling jerky I've encountered. But it is quite sweet as this variety name suggests.

Otherwise, the flavors that define this jerky most of all is a combination of the sweetness, ginger, and tanginess. The sweetness starts first, but as I got into the chewing, the ginger and tanginess started moving in and soon shared spotlight or took it over completely. There's light touches of soy sauce, black pepper and liquid smoke.

It's quite mild in that there's no heat to this. However, the ginger can be strong in some of these pieces, and in that respect you might get a moderate burn from it.

Overall, it's a very tasty flavor, marked by the sweetness, ginger, and tanginess, and a light swash of soy sauce, black pepper, and liquid smoke.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced into chunks and strips, some of which are bite-sized, and others enough for two bites. These are all sliced thick.

This is a semi-moist jerky with a semi-moist, sticky, oily surface feel. These pieces are quite tender and flexible. Chewing is largely easy.

The chewing texture starts out feeling quite tender, offering little resistance. They break apart with the first chew and take on a soft, meaty feel. It takes little time to chew down to a soft mass, and by that time it feels meaty, some of which is steak-like, but others more mushy.

I do see some small pieces of fat on a few pieces, but no visible signs of tendon or gristle. I feel some stringiness here and there, and I did encounter a few chunks of unchewable tissue.

As for clean eating, my fingertips pick up a little bit of sticky, oily film, some of which requires a licking and wiping before touching the keyboard, others do not.

Snack Value

Jimmy's Sticky Jerky sells this Sticky Sweet variety from its website at a price of $17.99 for 3-pack of 2.2oz packages. If you bought 3 of those of 3-packs, shipping comes out to just $5.00. That works out to a price of $2.98 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $2.98 per ounce price, it's a fair value. I'm getting a good overall flavor, a good meat consistency, and good chewing texture. Compared to other gourmet brands, it's considerably more costly, but still a little better overall than most.

Rating

I'm giving this a good rating.

This Sticky Sweet variety from Jimmy's Sticky Jerky offers up a good deal of sweetness but mixed a well-pronounced ginger seasoning, having a fresh ground character. There's also a fair amount of tanginess from the vinegar which I felt created a lot of interest.

The meat consistency seems good, with its thick chunks and strips of beef, feeling soft, moist and tender. The chewing texture overall feels meaty, sometimes steak-like, but other times rather mushy. I found encountered significant wads of unchewable tissues in some pieces.

In terms of flavor, I felt this Sticky Sweet variety was very good, particularly for its ginger and tangy chewing. And overall, the meat was good, except I was troubled by the wads of unchewable tissues in several of the pieces, and the mushy chewing in others.

Rating: Good

Buy this online:

• http://www.jimmysstickyjerky.com/