Smoking a Venison Hind Quarter While Passed Out. (pics)

So, one of my contributions to my family's Easter potluck was a smoked deer ham/hindquarter/arse. A well smoked deer ham is a thing of beauty IMO. Usually my technique involves putting the thing on mid-morning, drinking beer and tending to it, then feasting on it that evening. Having a 12:30 pm Easter lunch timeframe with church and all caused me to deviate from my usual method. Anyway, here goes:

Start with a cleaned, trimmed deer ham:


Inject or brine it. Both will achieve the same thing. This go round I went with injecting. Butter, apple juice, and a little beef stock.


Then plug it with a bunch of garlic. I had just started plugging when I took this.


Rub it down. Rub=
chili powder
brown sugar
garlic powder
onion powder
cayenne
paprika
kosher salt
olive oil
Minced garlic


Layer the bottom in bacon. I cut up a lemon and some jalapenos and added for the hell of it. (Helpful note: Do not attempt to take a picture with rub on your hands. You will drop your camera and cause a permanent dark spot to appear on all further pictures)


Encase the bastad in bacon and it's ready:


Problem is it's 4:00pm on a Saturday and I can't cook it yet. I'm trying to time it to be still warm at noon on the following day. I even made a thread asking if I could smoke it and reheat it. The resounding answer was no. So I go ahead and get my fire makings ready to go in ol' Bessie. Then head to a local crawfish boil/guitar pickin. Now all I've got to do is stay coherent/vertical enough to light the fire whenever I get home.


Fast forward 8 hours. It's 12:00 am. Apparently I do indeed remember to light the fire. And put the deer arse on. This is all real fuzzy.





Fast forward 8 hours. It's 8:00 am. I get a cup of coffee down and go outside to check the progress. Here's what I see:


My initial emotions. Ol Bessie had charred the shite out of it.

But upon further review, it was just the bacon that was charred. Once removed this is what I had:


Not too bad. Developed a nice smoke ring and retained a ton of moisture.






Made my Prime Rib horseradish sauce to go with. It was a hit. Despite there being 4 metric tons of food there, my deer arse got all but wiped out. I love it when a plan comes together.