Blu Collar Meat Co. - Spit Fire

Blu Collar Meat Co. is a start-up jerky brand launched last April 2018 by Steven and Brandy Reinecke in Lancaster, CA. Marketed as "100% homemade beef jerky", Reinecke says they use only locally sourced meats and ingredients.

The name, "Blu Collar Meat Co." makes reference to Steven's profession as a welder. "We represent the working class, and everybody putting in work ... whatever your profession, we got the jerky for you".

This Teriyaki variety is described as, "When you want heat but you also like sweet", going on to add that it combines red chiles and honey.


Ingredients

Beef, Garlic Powder, Crushed Red Pepper, Brown Sugar, Black Pepper, Honey, Habanero Powder

Review

The first flavors I pick up is an aged beef flavor along with a noticeable sweet and a bit of garlic. The chewing brings on an increased sweet, while the spicy heat starts to pick up. A soy sauce flavor becomes apparent further into the chewing. A light natural meat continues throughout.

For being marketed as a "sweet and hot" style jerky, made with red chiles and honey, it holds up really well. It's definitely quite sweet, but it also delivers a fair amount of chile pepper burn, though not over-the-top. I'd rate this as "medium" on our heat scale (level 3 out of 5). There's a light red chile flavor too.

Otherwise, the primary taste profile is something comparable to teriyaki due to its strong sweet and soy sauce base, but it's boosted with garlic, touches of red chile pepper, black pepper, and a light, but aged, natural flavor.

These slices are chewy, though still easy to bite off and get through. They eventually feel very steak-like, comparable to something cooked medium-rare. Despite the heavier marbleized cuts, I didn't encounter any stringiness or unchewable tissues.

Verdict

This Spit Fire variety from Blu Collar Meat Co. creates a delicious "sweet heat" variation with a noticeable spicy burn yet dialed down for general snacking. The sweetness goes an extra step with both brown sugar and honey, to create that sticky, candy sweetness over a teriyaki-esque marinade and a red chile pepper heat. Throw in some garlic and black pepper, and what you have is Blu Collar Meat Co.'s best beef jerky variety yet. The soft, moist slices of round create a chewing texture like that of a medium-rare steak, while the marbleized natural meat flavors give off that fatted, beefy character.

Rating: Good (4/5)