We smoked Bambi!

Or at least Bambi’s ribs.

With the first real winter snow fall coating the valley, we fired up the smoker to take a run at 11lbs. of venison ribs. I had done a smoked venison roast and had grilled moose strip steaks, but smoking venison ribs was a new one for me. Not much online about doing this – other than most hunters choose to not take the ribs. So, I decided to treat them like grass fed beef and work from there.

When raw, the ribs are a dark dark red with basically no fat. That should have been a bit of a warning sign, but I missed it. I decided to go with the Cha Cha Hut BBQ rub – created for pork and chicken – but probably should have opted for the Brisket rub (a bit less spicy and suited to beef). With ribs prepped and the smoker up to 260 degrees, in went Bambi for the next three hours.

While the ribs cooking, we headed off to an open house at Hudsonpress Print Studio (777 Carroll Hinkley Rd. Roxbury NY 12474). The studio is owned by artists Gerda van Leeuwen and Peter Yamaoka. Absolutely wonderful pantings and pottery plus great food and conversation made for a nice way to spend time while Bambi smoked.

Returning home, we found the ribs done and ready for resting. Out of the smoker, into foil and into the cooler to rest for a bit. (Yep – coolers also keep things warm…) Cherie’s experiment for the evening was the latest in Cha Cha Hut baked items: a sweet potato biscuit. Like a denser buttermilk biscuit, one of the tasters for the evening called them “moist scones”. They went so fast we forgot to take a photo though the blurry pic at the right shows Sean eating one. (The photo is perfectly clear – it’s Sean that is actually blurry.)

All in all not a bad first run at both venison ribs and sweet potato biscuits. I’d give the ribs 6/10 and the biscuit 8/10. A bit more moisture in the rib cooking, less spice in the rub and a shorter cook time should do the trick with Bambi. Slightly smaller biscuits will make for biscuit perfection.

Good thing we have more venison ribs coming soon…

As I was setting up for a recent Cha Cha Hut focus group (topic: portion size & pricing) I decided to make a little video showing the smoke my smoker generates. It should be noted, most of what appears to be smoke is actually steam.

The video is a progression throughout the day starting with the smoker being lit (no smoke/steam) to running at full cook with brisket & ribs (the maximum smoke/steam).