Venison Basics

[CatahoulaBarn]

Can anyone please give me the Venison basics? I just shot the first deer of the season and would like to smoke the hams,ribs, and a few back strap steaks.
  I've smoked lots of fish but never Venison.
  Smoker temp? Internal temp of meat? Brine, rub, or marinade. Or, all three or a combination of one or all? Injection?
  Any help appreciated. Please be specific, and give me a link to a website recipe or anything else.
  Thanks.



CBarn

[Cold Smoke]

Sorry, mate. Looks like you're out of luck on the smoked venison. Some here have made jerky with deer but I don't recall seeing anything along the lines of a smoked deer ham. As for back strap steaks- I could suggest to cut steaks to desired thickness and load them into the smoker and cold smoke them for 3-4 pucks worth- hickory is a good bet- then grill them to desired doneness.

A batch of ABT's on the side would be a nice touch...And cold beer. Beer and deer- like peas and carrots....like peanut butter and jam.

My $0.02. Keep us informed. Lot of hunters around here.

Cold Smoke

[whitetailfan]

Hate to see someone get no responses, but like Cold Smoke I have no experience with the cuts you want help with.  Pretty much all of my deer goes to jerky.  I hack it into manageable pieces and freeze, then slice it at the partial thaw stage when I want to smoke it.  This way I get to smoke all year making smaller batches of jerky fresh, rather than make a boat load in November and freezing the jerky.

If you are doing a large piece of meat as a roast, then I would brine it for moisture and likely drape it in bacon due to the lean qualities of deer.  Sorry, no recipe.  Injection sounds tasty.[:p]


<font color="green">whitetailfan</font id="green">
"Nice Rack"
Lethbridge, AB

[Phone Guy]

I recently had some Antelope meat made into salami. While at the "Sausage Factory" in Redding I noticed a guy picking up a rather large mule deer ham, shank and all, that he had smoked. It looked like a big virginia ham. I inquired as I had not seen this before and he said that he always has one smoked to use for slicing into sandwich meat or adding to chili or whatever. I talked with the guy who runs the smoker and the process they use is..

1. Inject the meat with a brine that has curing salt in it.

2. Put the whole thing in a vacuum tumbler. to pull the brine through the meat.

3. Smoke for 16 hours at 150 deg.

4 Crank the heat up to 225 and cook until the internal temp. is 150 deg.

Then he said " I got to go I got another call". I'm not sure he actualy had another call or just realized he told me to much. [;)]