Has anyone ever smoked a venison front shoulder? How long did it take? How did it turn out?

I have a pair of de-boned shoulders in the freezer. I am thinking of tying them up with butcher's twine, coating with rub and putting them on the smoker.

I smoke them. I usually just separate the muscles then rub well with High Mountain jerky mix and smoke to 155 degrees internal. Come out really, really good,

I marinate my venison in teriyaki and smoke with alderwood, have been doing this for years and prefer alderwood over all other wood.

Sounds great. Might have to give this a shot this fall.

Thanks guys! I am going to try this soon.

I have never tried it, although I have been wanting to. The lack of fat makes for a risky deal. I have a Cajun uncle that told me to lay the shoulder on the grill/smoker and then place a boston butt or picnic ham on top of it for the cook. The idea is that the fat from the pork will help keep the venison moist. Unsure if it would make the venison very porkish tasting or not. Thinking about giving it a try this year.

The I've been smoking a lot of venison the last few years and have never had it come out dry done the way I described above.

Everyone that I've seen do it has done so with bacon draped over the shoulder. Neck roast are especially good when wrapped in bacon or jowl and smoked or slow roasted.

Not smoked, but cooked, bone in, in an oven roasting bag w potatoes carrots onions and peppers, a can of beef both, and a packet or two of Lipton onion soup mix for seasoning up the meat is the bomb. Simply cook at 275-300 for a few hours until the meat pulled apart.

For me leave the onion soup mix out. I hate that damn stuff. miles

The same recipes also work on rear venison shoulders.

Every year we have a game dinner. One of the best entrees is always the smoked Venison Hind Quarters. They get a rub and an all day smoke.
Just absolutely amazing. These are done bone in and the meat is sliced off and served with three BBQ sauces on the side for dipping. No Bacon or pork is involved.
Tender and Juicy.
Enjoy.

Ya gotta admit, front shoulders are the best!

I tried smoking shoulders once, turned out dry and tough. Guess I went too long.


Now I put them in the crock pot slow cooker. Leave on the bone, but dejoint it so it will fit in the pot. Cook all day and the shred the meat with forks and add BBQ sauce. The bomb!

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.