Smoked venison

Local huntsman Larry Bees dropped off a venison roast last week, asking if we'd smoke it for him as an appetizer for a Christmas party. Being the swell guys we are, we accepted and immediately formed a plan of action.

Venison is a lean cut of meat. It requires some tender loving care if you want to keep it moist and flavorful. Bacon larding is a popular option. As is marinating.

No marinating for Hog Wild, though!

What's that, you say? No marinating??!

No, sireebob. Not for here at Hog Wild.

Marinating damages meat fibers, tending to make them mushy instead of truly tender. A marinade also doesn't lend to a meat's true flavor potential, only penetrating the cut by 1/4 of an inch.

We prefer to brine big hunks of meat, when possible. Particularly turkeys and pork loins. It keeps things moist and adds flavor to the meat through the process of osmosis.

A brine is a simply solution of salty liquid, sugar and seasonings. A liquid dry cure, if you will. The salt allows the solution to penetrate quicker and can flavor meat down to its center via the osmosis process. In addition, the salt changes the protein by letting protein cells expand and hold more water--thus a more juicy end product. You an actually overcook a brined meat and still have more juicy than a perfectly cooked unbrined meat.

For Larry's hunk o' venison...

...we chose a standard brine consisting of 1 cup of kosher salt to 1 gallon of cold water. We added 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar for a sweeter meat, since this is going to be used as an appetizer, and then threw in some allspice, granulated garlic, course black pepper, bay leaves and juniper berries. Venison loves juniper.

You can bring your brine to a boil, if you'd like, in order to make sure everything is combined nice and tight, then cool it before submerging your meat. We use a whisk and stir the hell out of it until everything is dissolved.

Larry's venison hits the water and goes into the fridge at World Headquarters for a good 16-hour soak. In order to keep everyone in the pool, we added a heavy plate.

In the morning, we will remove the roast from the brine, dust it down with a rub and put it on the smoker. Larry asked for a final temperature in the ball park of pulled pork, so 190-200 degrees. Personally, I'd smoke the roast to a lovely medium rare and shave it down on our slicer. But that's just me. I like my meat somewhere between still walking and rare.