Just Smoked Salmon - Candy Jerky

Next in the series on Just Smoked Salmon is this Candy Jerky. See my previous review of their Teriyaki Jerky.

Just Smoked Salmon is a brand name of Wright Distributing, Inc., based out of Port Angeles, WA. Even though the company uses the word "jerky" on their labels, it doesn't actually appear to be jerky as I discovered with their Teriyaki Jerky. I've reviewed other brands of salmon jerky and found them to be chewier, and more dry. This stuff is actually very soft, and very moist. It's just smoked salmon as the brand name says.

This Candy Jerky is what I believe to be traditional "squaw candy", which is effectively a sweetened salmon jerky. Except, I'm sure in this case, it's standard smoked salmon, as opposed to salmon jerky.

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Just Smoked Salmon - Teriyaki Jerky

Just Smoked Salmon is a brand name of Wright Distributing, Inc., based out of Port Angeles, WA.

The company started out in 1999 focusing on distributing smoked salmon products but has since expanded to include other seafood including tuna, clams, trout, oysters, and others.

While this package is labeled "Teriyaki Jerky", I can't tell if it was truly meant to be a jerky, or if it's really just smoked salmon. But since it carries the "jerky" description, I sought to do a review. I also have a package of their "Candy Jerky" which I'll review later.

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Fish Brothers - Smoked Salmon Jerky

Fish Brothers is a brand of Fish Brothers, Inc., based out of Blue Lake, CA. The company has been around since 1984, operating as an FDA approved smoke house for smoked fish. They also offer a smoking service for fishermen, smoking your fish for you, and they do private labeling too.

This salmon jerky is thus far the only product they make that carries the "jerky" description. All of their other products are sold as smoked fish. They also do lox and nova. All of their smoking is done over hickory chips.

The best I can tell, you can't buy this salmon jerky from Fish Brothers' website, you'll have to find a retailer somewhere. I was able to obtain this review sample through House of Jerky.

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Alaska's Best Salmon Jerky - Regular

While I've had lots of smoked salmon, this is the first time I've had something labed as "salmon jerky". Since I know very little about salmon jerky, I'm assuming it's the same thing as smoked salmon, except drier, and chewier.

The best I can tell, the Alaska's Best brand is owned by Trapper's Creek, Inc., based out of Anchorage, AK. Trapper's Creek was founded in 1988 as a shipper of smoked salmon.

Salmon jerky has actually been around for a very long time, maybe as long as beef jerky. It used to be called "squaw candy", or "salmon candy", where indians would take strips of salmon, soak it overnight in a sugar-salt brine, and then smoke it until it became hard. Today, there's actually a line of snack foods called "salmon candy" produced by several manufacturers, but is more sweet than "salmon jerky".

Ingredients

Wild Salmon, salt, brown sugar, corn syrup solids, natural flavoring, spices, garlic powder (contains: fish).

Taste

The tastes I get from the surface of these pieces is a fishy taste, with some saltiness. Maybe a very slight sweetness. In the chewing, I pick up a stronger smoked salmon taste, and a stronger saltiness.

This basically tastes like smoked salmon, just like you'd find anywhere else. Because it's drier than smoked salmon, there's less of a fishy taste than you'd find in smoked salmon. But it still seems to provide a lot of smoked salmon flavor.

I do however, get a fishy aftertaste in the back of my mouth.

It also seems to have a fresh taste, at least I don't sense anything stale in this.

I'd say that this is more salty than typical smoked salmon. The nutrition facts label shows 910mg of sodium which is very high for other meat jerkies. But since I do love smoked salmon, and because this jerky does provide a lot of that taste, the saltiness is something I can overlook.

I don't really notice much in the spices and garlic powder.

For the most part, this is just the great taste of smoked salmon, albeit with more salt.

Meat Consistency

These appear to be strips of whole meat, cut into lengths of about 6-8 inches, and widths of about 1/2 inch.

It's largely dry, but they do have a degree of oiliness on the surface and inside the meat. It's very easy to bite off a piece, the meat mostly separates by the grain. It's also very easy to chew. It's not anywhere near as moist as actual smoked salmon, but then again that's why they call this "salmon jerky".

And it chews just like real smoked salmon, just a little more dry.

In terms of cleanliness, it does leave a thin layer of oil on my fingertips. There's also tiny granules of sugar (I think it's sugar), on one side of these strips, which sticks to that layer of oil on my fingertips.




Snack Value

You can purchase this online from Climax Jerky in a sampler containing this regular, along with peppered, and teriyaki, at a price of $6.00 for a 2 ounce package. That works out to a price of $3.00 per ounce. Which for salmon jerky, is on the lower end of average priced.

For salmon jerky snacking purposes, it's a great value only because at that price, it's got a great smoked salmon flavor, in a form factor that makes it relatively clean to eat with your fingers. I found it very tempting to keep eating more.

Rating

I'm giving this a best rating.

I'll have to condition that, however, by saying that I can't really compare this to other salmon jerkies, since I haven't had any other salmon jerkies. But I did get plenty of smoked salmon flavor, and found this very easy to bite off and chew. It was also rather salty, but I found the smoked salmon flavor to be so rich, that I easily overlooked the saltiness.

It also leaves behind a fishy taste in my mouth and a fishy smell on my fingers, but then again, I think that's to be expected with salmon jerky.

But still, I really enjoyed eating this, and couldn't resist eating more.

For a good beer recommendation, try a wheat beer.

Rating: Best (5/5)

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