As much as we all love jerky, I'll be the first to admit that not all brands and flavors are created equal. There is an art to making jerky that tastes great as well as has the right texture! To much of just one seasoning, flavor, or just a few minutes to much or to shy in the smoker and the whole batch of jerky is ruined.
I often make my own jerky, but after all that work, I pull the meat off the smoker to realize how little jerky I have for all my hard work! Don't get me wrong, I love making my own jerky but I can consume a whole batch of jerky in a few hours if I don't watch myself! (Fat person problems)
I recently had the opportunity to review a brand of jerky that is quite popular in South Eastern Idaho as well as many other areas! Glenwood Snacks is located here in St. Anthony Idaho! I have had Glenwood jerky for years, but I have not tried all their different flavors of jerky so I was pretty excited for this review. The flavors I was able to taste were: Original, Peppered, Teriyaki, Smoke Pit, Sweet and Spicy, and 7 Alarm.
One thing I like about Glenwood Jerky is that they are gluten free, no added nitrates, and no added MSG's. I know this may not be important to all of you, but my family is big on overall gut health as well as my family suffers from Celiac Disease and gluten intolerance. My son who is 5 has Celiac Disease, while my wife and daughter have an intolerance to gluten. Finding great tasting jerky that is clean and healthy is harder than it should be. Which brings me to my next point!
Jerky does not need 100 ingredient! I LOVE that Glenwood jerky is not full of 100 different ingredients, chemicals, or perspectives. The taste you get from Glenwood is from ingredients you can pronounce and recognize. There is no guessing on what you're eating and putting into your body.
The video I am sharing is a video of my initial reaction and taste test of each flavor while I'll give a brief description of each one below.
I recruited some help in this review by having my family and a few of my coworkers taste test all of the different flavors of jerky, and then I had them rank them from their favorite to their least favorite. These are the results I got back when I combined all of the feedback from the 10 different people.
Rankings:
1. Smoke Pit
2. Peppered
3. Teriyaki
4. Original
5. Sweet and Spicy
6. 7 Alarm
Now here is my brief on each different flavor in the order they were ranked by this review.
Smoke Pit - Hardy, smokey, with a touch of sweetness. I love the smoke flavor and tenderness of this flavor! The ingredients include molasses, tomato paste, brown sugar, honey, and apple juice. I have to say the way have blended these different flavors where you don't taste to much of one thing or not enough of another is a perfect combination. It's a great southern taste of smoky goodness!
Peppered - This flavor is another solid staple jerky flavor that Glenwood does a great job with. Perfect balance of pepper where you don't feel like they emptied a while bottle of black pepper into each bag of jerky, yet enough peppery flavor that it set's it apart from the original flavored jerky. The Peppered and Smoke Pit were tied until the last person gave me their results which put the Smoke Pit just one score above the Peppered.
Teriyaki - The perfect balance of sweet and salty teriyaki flavor. This one was great, I could taste the brown sugar immediately, while the salty teriyaki flavor had a constant presence. When I had my family and coworkers taste these flavors, the Teriyaki had mixed results. I had a few people who said they normally love teriyaki who said they didn't care for this one as much, while others who actually picked it as their number 1 choice!.
Original - Honestly you can't beat the taste of good ole' Original Jerky. It resonates with you and is such a comfort food. The Original flavor has a touch of sweetness, smoke flavor, and spices.
Sweet and Spicy - I had mixed feelings about this one as I thought it was sweeter than it was spicy. I almost felt like it was a bit of a mix between the teriyaki and the peppered. I personally would have liked a bit more spice with it, but I also had a few other people who said they loved it just the way it was. Those who liked spicy food tended to say it needed more of a kick while those who were indifferent about spicy food said it was just enough of a kick to make things interesting.
7 Alarm - If you love spicy food, this one is for you! Out of the 10 people who helped me taste these different flavors, I had 2 people rank it as their top pick, while the other 8 put it either their second to last, or their very least favorite. It was an either you loved it or you didn't type of a thing :) I myself loved it! I didn't put it as my top pick myself, but I felt it was a great flavor while also spicy enough to REALLY get your attention. Some of the ingredients include JalapeƱo, Habanero, Ghost Pepper, Carolina Reaper, and Scorpion Pepper!!! If you don't like spicy food, we won't hold it against you if you don't want to try this one. If you do love spicy food, you may have just found your new favorite snack food!
Now to the fun part! Who doesn't want free jerky!!! I'm doing a giveaway for 3 packs of Glenwood Jerky! The winner will be randomly selected and I'll send them three packs of Glenwood Jerky! Just follow the link below to get entered! Also PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THIS GIVEAWAY AND REVIEW! The more traffic we get, the more giveaways we can do! If you help us out, then we can do more fun reviews and giveaways such as this! So please share on social media as well as tell your family and friends! Thank you all for the support!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
As well as my giveaway I also have a discount to offer all of my followers. You can get .50 off a 16 ounce bag of jerky. You can either click the Glenwood logo on the side bar on my blog post to take you to the website or go to: glenwoodsnacks.com/idaho-pursuit-store then use the password IDPUR50 to get into the storefront which will automatically give you the discount pricing.
Disclaimer:
As with all reviews on Idaho Pursuit, the following review is my honest opinion. Glenwood provided me with these flavors of jerky in exchange for a product review. I have purchased the Glenwood Jerky which is offered as the giveaway/prize for this post. I am not sponsored by or affiliated with Glenwood Jerky other than this simple request of a review. Glenwood did not give me any instructions or guidance on how to review the products so everything written on this post is based on my personal experience and opinion.
Good review!! Going to check out the 7 alarm!!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to try the sweet and spicy!
ReplyDeleteGreat review!! I’ll have to check out their jerky! I’m always looking for new kinds.
ReplyDeleteLove Glenwood! Delicious ��
ReplyDeleteAwesome review! I'm most excited to try the Smoke Pit honestly! I love that Smokey flavor!
ReplyDeletepeppered jerky is all ways the best
ReplyDeleteReview was a good read. Would love to try the smoke pit flavor
ReplyDeleteGood review to read. Looking forward to trying the smoke pit flavor.
ReplyDeleteLove to support local! Plus they are good!!
ReplyDelete