Friday, March 26, 2010

Clint & Sons Beef Jerky - Original


The company's primary business is in custom slaughtering and processing, but beef jerky is a popular product of theirs. They also operate a BBQ restaurant, and manufacture other snack food products.

Clint & Sons offers two flavors of beef jerky at this time, this Original variety and a Hot variety which I'll review later.


Beef, water, teriyaki flavored marinade (salt, sugar, hydrolyzed soy protein, dextrose, monosodium glutamate, molasses powder, spices, caramel color), cure (salt, sugar, brown sugar, sodium nitrite (0.84%), maple syrup), black pepper.


The first thing I taste from the surface of these pieces is a light smoky flavor, with a moderate saltiness. I can pick up faint bits of sweet.

The chewing flavor starts with a light black pepper flavor, followed by a stronger saltiness, and a light natural meat flavor.

I'd say the flavor that seems to represent this jerky the most is the saltiness. Initially, it has a moderate level of intensity in the first couple pieces I eat. But after haven eaten several pieces, the saltiness builds up to a higher intensity and feels strong.

That saltiness is tempered, however, by a just a bit of sweet. It's a light flavor, but seems to be just enough to keep the saltiness from scorching my tongue.

There's also a black pepper flavor that shows through easily enough, but is still at a low intensity in the first couple of pieces. But it builds up a well-noticed aftertaste after eating several pieces.

The meat flavors are easily noticed but not strong, having more of a cured-meat flavor rather than a natural meat flavor. It's still an enjoyable flavor that rounds out the overall taste.

Overall, what you're going to taste in this jerky is a strong saltiness, with a light black pepper flavor. There's a fair amount of cured-meat flavor to help round things out.

Meat Consistency

These are slices of whole meat, sliced thin, and in small pieces.

This is a dry jerky with a dry surface feel. The pieces crack apart easily with just a little bending. They tear apart easily enough with my fingers, with just a bit of resistance. Ease of chewing is moderate to slightly tough.

The chewing texture starts out with a stiff, plastic feel, and a fair amount of chewing resistance. If chewed immediately, it can give your jaws a moderate work out. But there's enough flavor in this that it lends itself to being savored which helps soften things up. Once chewed down to a soft mass, it feels like just a piece of steak, one cooked medium.

This jerky looks to be very lean, seeing no pieces of fat, tendon, or gristle. In the chewing I encountered no unchewable wads of tissue, and found very little stringiness.

It's also pretty clean eating, finding no residue on my fingers, and seeing no tiny fragments of meat flying off as I tore pieces.

Snack Value

Clint & Sons sells this Original beef jerky from their website in various package sizes. You can buy a full pound bag for $16.95, with shipping costs of $7.50. That works out to a price of $1.53 per ounce.

For general jerky snacking purposes, at the $1.53 per ounce price, this seems to provide a good value. I'm getting a fair amount of snackability for its satisfactory flavor and good meat consistency. That $1.53 price is cheaper than what you'd pay for national jerky brands at the grocery store, but yet you're getting better snackability.


beef jerky nutritionI'm giving this a good rating.

This Original beef jerky from Clint & Sons seems to provide a good overall flavor with its smoky meat flavor, black pepper, high saltiness and faint bit of sweet. It provides a better flavor, and more flavor, than the original varieties of national brands, though it's more tough to chew.

This is a jerky for folks who like dry, chewy, salty jerky. It has a good deal of flavor that will let you suck and savor each piece, allowing this jerky to soften up and make chewing easier. And from this review sample, it appears to be very lean, pretty much all meat.

But overall, the flavor is not remarkable in comparison with other gourmet brands of jerky I've had. It's a simple flavor of salt and pepper, though it has an enjoyable meat flavor. And the level of saltiness is at the upper limits of my personal tolerance. Otherwise it's a good jerky that evokes thoughts of the old west when a snack like this would fit well into a long day's work on the ranch.

For my recommended beer pairing, I'd stick with a simple brown ale, try Big Sky's Moose Drool, or a Newcastle Brown Ale, the roasted malt flavor should do well with the meat flavor, and the refreshing quality should quench the heavy saltiness.

Rating: Good

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