I finally got around to experimenting with this. I defrosted a de-boned front shoulder, tied it with butcher's twine to make sure it wouldn't fall apart and then rubbed it with the same rub I use for pork butts. I smoked it on the bottom rack of my bullet smoker with a pork butt on the rack above it. I used chunks of cherry for smoke. I had the water pan full.
I had a temp. probe in the venison to monitor the temperature. Temp. of the smoker settled in between 225 - 235 and held very steady. The temperature of the venison rose pretty quickly. After about 3 hours, the temperature of the venison stalled at 160 similar to what you would expect from a pork butt.
I planned to keep the venison in the smoker until the temp. reached 200. I wanted to see if, like when doing beef or pork BBQ, letting the temp get up to 200 would cause all of the sinew and connective tissue to soften. When the temp of the venison reached 190, things got interesting. It went into a second stall. Even though I boosted the temp. of the smoker some, the temp. of the venison wouldn't budge and even started to decrease. So after two or three hours of this "second stall", I decided it was done.
I thought the front shoulder turned out good but not great. My wife liked it better than I did. The outside quarter inch or so was dry but the inside was more moist and tender. Interestingly, most of it had the texture and mouthfeel of beef pot roast. I will probably cook another shoulder this way in the future. However, I will not smoke it with cherry again. It seemed to give a milder flavor than even apple. I will use hickory next time.
