My advice would be to brine it in the fridge for at least 12 hours, 24 if the meat still has the outer membrane on it. A good basic brine is 1 cup kosher salt to 1 gal of water. Add what you like for spices. If you are going to have the temperature of the smoker below 160*F for 4 hours or more add 1 teaspoon of cure #1 per 5 lbs of meat. Take the shoulder out of the brine, pat dry with paper towel and then allow it air dry for 1-2 hours. You want the meat almost room temperature when you put it in the smoker. If you want you can add a fine layer of mustard to allow a dry rub to stick. Apply a dry rub of your choice. Wrap in bacon, this will add an additional layer of fat. This does 2 things, 1 it allows the deer meat to soak in some of the fat, 2 the bacon will become crispy and seal in the juices from the venison. Apply another layer of your dry rub to the bacon. With your smoker pre heated to 140, smoke the deer with the wood of your choice for 2-3 hours with heavy white smoke. Then wrap the deer in tinfoil, raise the smoker temp to 150 for an additional 3 hours. Remove the tinfoil then raise the temp to 170*f until you get an internal temp of 165*F ( this is the safe temp according to the government, I pull mine at 152*F for med). Remove tinfoil and throw the shoulder on the BBQ at high heat 500 or more to give the bacon a really good crisp. This should only take 5-7 min. Allow the meat to rest then serve.
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Last edited by ghostguy6; 11-23-2017 at 12:16 PM.
Reason: forgot some info
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