Owned and operated by Runnin Wild Foods based out of Norcross, GA, the Steak 'N A Bag brand was conceived by a couple of brothers originally producing steak seasoning blends. Since then, they've gone on to add beef sticks to their product line-up.
According to the company, this Sweet Barbeque beef jerky is described as, "Loaded with authentic smokehouse seasoning, this incredibly tasty Steak 'N A Bag is tender and moist, smoldering with spice, and blazin’ with serious flavor."
Beef, salt, sugar, monosodium glutamate, paprika, spices, garlic, sodium nitrite.
Taste
The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a light saltiness. I can pick up a touch of chile pepper flavor, and a faint bit of sweet.
The chewing adds more saltiness, while the chile pepper flavor is more pronounced. There's some heat coming in, and a noticeable garlic.
For being labeled as "Hot N Spicy", it seems to hold up to that billing. It's not exactly burning hot, but there is a low level of heat in this, enough to satisfy the 80% of people who claim to love spicy food. On my personal heat scale, I'd rate this as "medium" (level 3 out of 5).
Otherwise, the flavors that seem to define this jerky overall starts with a strong saltiness. If anything, that's what this jerky is, salty. The chile pepper flavor has the next most dominant profile, with the light sweet and light garlic rounding the other noticeable flavors.
The natural meat flavors in this are light, but doesn't really make itself well known, perhaps due to the stronger saltiness.
Collectively, the ingredients create a snackable flavor that delivers on its claims as a "Hot N Spicy" jerky, but weighted on the saltiness.
Meat Consistency
These appear to be slices of whole meat, cut into strips of three-to-four inches in length, and sliced medium thickness.
This is a dry jerky with a semi-moist surface feel, and slightly oily to the touch. The pieces have a plastic like flexibility to them, and are easy to bite off and chew.
The chewing texture starts out with a somewhat soft and tender feel, a little waxy, but somewhat meaty. They easily chew down to a soft mass and at that point, feels kinda mushy and not really like a piece of steak.
I do see some small spots of fat on these pieces, and I can taste them as well, leaving a light oiliness in my mouth. Otherwise, I don't see any gristle or tendon, and I didn't encounter any stringiness or unchewable wads of tissue.
In terms of clean eating, it's pretty clean aside from a very thin oily/waxy film on my fingers, but nothing requiring a licking or wiping.
Runnin Wild Foods sells this Hot N Spicy beef jerky from its website at a price of $5.99 for a 3.25oz package. They offer $10.00 flat rate shipping on all orders of $50.00 or more. If you bought 10 packages, it would work out to a price of $2.15 per ounce.
For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $2.15 per ounce price, it's a decent value. It has a good overall flavor, snackable, though salty, with a tender, easy chewing. Compared other other brands of jerky, it has better than average flavor, a good meat consistency and decent chewing.
As a hot and spicy beef jerky, at the same $2.15 per ounce price, it's a fair value. I'm getting a fair amount of heat with a noticeable chile pepper flavor, probably in the same level as I would expect to get from the major brands, at about the same price.
Rating
This Hot N Spicy beef jerky from Steak 'N A Bag offers a moderate amount of heat and a noticeable chile pepper flavor that should create a snackable experience for spicy food lovers. In many respects, this tastes much like the company's Original beef jerky, except with some chile pepper seasoning added in.
And just like the Original, it tastes higher in saltiness, but seems to deliver a little more snackability thanks to the additional chile pepper flavor. With a cold beverage close by, however, that saltiness seems to be mitigated, and what you have is a jerky that tastes quite addicting for folks who like hot foods.
The meat consistency seems good, being mostly meaty with nothing stringy or unchewable, and offering a tender easy chew.
Rating:
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I'm Steve Johnson, and I've been in the Internet marketing and publishing business since 1997. I've been a life-long fan of beef jerky and decided to merge my profession with my snack food of choice, and gave birth to Best Beef Jerky.
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