Whole venison leg on the kamado

Today I scratched something off my list that I have been wanting to cook for a long time...a whole venison hind quarter.

A buddy and I have been talking about doing it for a while and today was the day. He brought over a hind quarters off a young buck he killed with his bow this season. We studded it with garlic and then gave it a healthy dose of Oakridge BBQ's venison & wild game rub and a secondary layer of Oakridge's Santa Maria rub.

Onto the kamado which was running lump charcoal with a chunk of hickory, apple and plum. Results were spectacular - tender, flavorful, simply delicious. We decided this was going to become a yearly tradition.

On to the pictures!

Rubbed up:



Waiting for the pit to come up to temp:



Barley fit but it fit - whole leg on the Vision Kamado




Since we had time to kill we decided to have a quick fish fry - thawed up a bag of crappie from earlier this spring. Tried a couple new beers while we were at it.



Crappie getting happy:




Simple batter - Andy's Cajun




Back to the leg - looking good:




And pulled - IT hit about 128-130




Closer look - the smells at this point were heavenly



After a 30 minute rest:




Juicy - tender - smoke ring:



Plenty of juice!




Sliced up:




Thinly sliced, little horseradish slathered on and rolled up - fantastic




I had high hopes for this cook but didn't know what to expect never having done it before. This was probably one of the top 3 things I have cooked...

Thanks everyone - it was a blast to cook, we will be doing it again next season assuming one of us gets another deer.

brimclau said:

That looks FANTASTIC! what temp were you running and about how long did it take to come up to 130* IT? thanks

Click to expand...

brimclau - my initial target was going to be around 250 to 300 but temps spiked on my while setting up the fish fry. The pit hit 600 in the dome thermometer before I got it shut down. It settled to 400 for a bit and then dropped down to 300 and cruised there for the remainder of the cook. I don't have an exact timing of the cook, forgot to look since I was multitasking but it wasn't on there more than a couple hours.