The next review on Smoke House Select will be on a 9.5 ounce/270 gram bag of their hot flavored beef jerky. The actual jerky weight is 252 grams, where the plastic bag weight makes up for the missing 18 grams. This bag was purchased at Mac’s Convenience Store in Brampton, Ontario, Canada.
This jerky is distributed by Smoke House Select, who are located in Whitby, Ontario, Canada. This jerky is actually manufactured by The Great Canadian Meat Factory acting as a private labeler, located in Whitby, Ontario, Canada. The Great Canadian Meat Factory was founded in 1992, and have grown to one of the largest lines of meat snacks in Canada. This jerky qualifies to use a stock recipe.
Ingredient Review
Ingredients: Beef, Water, Salt, Sugar, Spice, Soy Sauce (Water, Extract of Soybeans, Wheat Flour, Monosodium Glutamate), Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrite, Smoke Allergen Warnings: Soy, Wheat
The beef used is not guaranteed to be free of growth hormones or additional antibiotics. Also, the beef is not guaranteed to have at least partial free range access to graze on grass. As a result, the highest ingredient rating that can be awarded is a Good (8/10) rating.
The liquid marinade uses only water and soy sauce. As soy sauces go, this is not the healthiest recipe, namely because it uses the unhealthy flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG).
The sugar level is sort of high at around 3.75 grams of sugar per 28 grams of jerky. The salt level is unbelievably high at around 765mg of salt per 28 grams of jerky. Our preference is 350mg of salt or less.
This jerky uses unhealthy sodium nitrate as a preservative. Also used is sodium erythorbate, which is no better. Disappointingly, this jerky uses the unhealthy flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate (MSG) in the soy sauce.
Fair (4/10) – Ingredient Rating
Taste Review
All of these strips of jerky are quite long, rectangular shaped, and are all uniform in size. They are sliced to a thin thickness. These strips of jerky are unnaturally formed, where there is no natural grain to tear these strips along. They are chunked and formed, or chopped and formed, or something similar. There are some visible signs of fat, and handling this jerky leaves a tiny bit of oily residue on your fingers.
The first taste detected is what seems to be a mild onion powder/garlic powder combination. The soy taste is mild at best, as is the sweetness. Each bite finishes off with a light smoked flavor. The salt level is moderately strong, and at too high of a level. As for the heat, it would rank around a 2 out of 5 on the heat scale, perhaps a little higher depending on your tolerance for spiciness.
This is not your classic tasting natural beef flavor from a solid strip of beef. It tastes processed. It takes effort to chew this jerky, despite being sliced thin. Overall, while decent tasting, there is little natural beef flavor here.
This 9.5 ounce/270 gram bag of jerky cost $19.99. That works out to $2.10 an ounce, which rates as an average price. Given that this is such an unusually large quantity of jerky, this would more rate as an expensive price. This jerky is not recommended from a health or texture perspective.
Bag Review
This is an unusually long narrow plastic bag that appears to be more of a tray instead of a bag. It has two sections to hold equally sized jerky strips. There is a label affixed to the front, and another label with the nutrition facts table on the back.
The Smoke House Select logo depicts the letter ‘O’ in the word ‘House’ as a smokehouse. There are no slogans or facts printed on this bag.
The majority of bag categories have been covered. Most notably missing is that this bag is not resealable considering that 9.5 ounces/270 grams is a sizable amount of jerky. Also missing is that the jerky weight is not stated in ounces, and a blurb about this flavor or company. As per Canadian laws, there are French translations provided.
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