Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Bear With Me...

Tomorrow, I'm to meet with the hog hunting crew, ostensibly to, "plan" our October adventure. I'm not exactly sure what, "planning" there is to do, since we simply load up the truck with too many guns and far too much food, then point it toward the swamp, & floor it for about 11 hours. Easy as pie.

Still, we're not ones to waste the occasion of a get together, and have decided accordingly, to sup. Rummaging through the chest freezer, I came upon the last remnants of this guy:







A scant 3 years ago, he was lolling about the Talkeetnas, gorging on those berries that carpet the lower slopes. He happened upon a 154 grain Interlock, and ended up in a bag:







After a long nap in the chest freezer, I extracted him, and decided to try my hand at smoking him on the Bullet. Of course, being a particularly consistent bear, he's still in a bag:







Upon opening, everything smelled fine. I scraped off the odd splinters of mountain residue, and trimmed a few patches of discolored fat. Then I remembered that my Wife & I had recently been gifted with a bottle of Cabernet. We don't drink, and we weren't sure how we were going to re-gift it, but while cleaning up the roasts, it occurred to me that the wine would be just as good as a brine:






So, tomorrow morning will have found the 2 shoulder roasts & 1 ham roast (serendipitously all of like size) to have soaked for 24 hours. I intend to toss it on the Bullet, utilizing a few chunks of apple wood, and see what I end up with.

I haven't decided on a final meat temperature. I've seen some schools of thought 'round the internet that 155 degrees would leave it juicy. The frequent saying being to, "treat it like pork." Then again, these same people will smoke their pork butts to 195 degrees. I guess I could check them at the lower temp, & see whether my taste angel compels me to seek a higher number.

In the meantime, contingency planning is always appropriate. Should the bear fail to wow, I've whipped up a batch of Espresso Ice Cream, loaded with cappuccino chocolate bits and chocolate covered espresso beans.







Stay tuned for pics from the smoker.



FC