# Venison Ribs



## dwolfpak (Nov 28, 2019)

Getting a couple venison racks from this years hunt.  Anyone have suggestions on smoking them?  Not much fat so I was thinking of coating them with garlic butter or wrapping in bacon to help baste them.

thoughts?
Dan


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## poacherjoe (Nov 28, 2019)

Trim ALL the fat off and par boil them in beef stock first . Simmer them for an hour or so. Then smoke em. I like BBQ sauce on mine! Then when your done eating them  get the dental floss out.


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## Hawging It (Nov 28, 2019)

Curious to see the end results. I harvest a couple of bucks every year. I waste very little.  Never save the ribs though.


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## tallbm (Nov 29, 2019)

Our small bodied deer in the TX (due to heat they stay smaller) don't really have much meat in the ribs and the ribs take up a LOT of cooler space so the dogs, coyotes, or buzzards usually get the ribs.

paocherjoe seems to have a good approach.

Another approach that I am guessing could work (never tried it) would be to put them in a turkey roasting pan on a rack.  Put water in the bottom of the pan, cover the pan with the lid and put them in the oven to basically steam them until they are cooked and a bit tender but not falling apart.
THEN put the pan without the lid in the smoker and smoke them on low low heat to get your smoke flavor.

With wild hog/pig/pork ribs I do something very similar but once the ribs about done in the oven I throw them on the grill and finish there and they come out awesome!  Wild pigs are lean too and the smaller ones don't have much meat on the ribs, very similar to venison ribs.

Let us know what you do and how it turns out :)


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## forktender (Nov 29, 2019)

Hawging It said:


> Curious to see the end results. I harvest a couple of bucks every year. I waste very little.  Never save the ribs though.


We always threw the ribs on an oak fire, they came out tough as can be....but man were they good.
They were gone before we ever made it home......I'm not much of a heart and liver kinda guy so dad and my older brother always ate those while I had the ribs with my girlfriend or buddy, whoever was with us that didn't like organ meat.


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## archeryrob (Nov 29, 2019)

I can't for the life of me figure out how people eat them. Our deer are farm deer and have access to corn, soybeans and clover food plots. Does in October have 1/4" to more fat on top their hind legs. The flank meat over the ribs has layers of fat as thick as the meat. I have sliced it before for the dog and it literally looks like dark bacon. I can eat it, but if they have been eating the black oak acorns it get rather bitter.

Maybe your guys deer are starving and skinny?

I save the heart and liver for Bruanschweiger and might try pickled heart this year.


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## Hawging It (Nov 29, 2019)

forktender said:


> We always threw the ribs on an oak fire, they came out tough as can be....but man were they good.
> They were gone before we ever made it home......I'm not much of a heart and liver kinda guy so dad and my older brother always ate those while I had the ribs with my girlfriend or buddy, whoever was with us that didn't like organ meat.


I'm with you! No hearts or livers for me either.


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## sandyut (Nov 29, 2019)

dwolfpak said:


> etting a couple venison racks from this years hunt. Anyone have suggestions on smoking them? Not much fat so I was thinking of coating them with garlic butter or wrapping in bacon to help baste them.
> 
> thoughts?
> Dan


my thoughts - have me come over and make sure they are good enough for everyone else ;)


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## WildmanWilson (Dec 6, 2019)

The best thing to do is throw them in a ditch. Even the animals won’t hardly mess with them. Other than bugs.


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## archeryrob (Dec 30, 2019)

I thought about this thread yesterday. I had shot a doe and she was pretty fat. I trimmed all the rump fat and visceral fat and saved it in a 1 gallon bag during processing. Even pulled a few flank sections in two layers of fat that I normally just cut what I can and donate the rest to the woods critters.

So I took all this out to the grill to fry it and render it. It makes Black powder lube for wads and I want to try making candles with it too. I fried the meat flank slices first. Figure I'll save them for pooch treats and feed some fried fat scrapes to the chickens. I gave the dog one and I looked at one and was like wow, that looks good. So I eat one. 30 seconds later I remember why I don't eat deer fat as I feel like someone crisco'd the roof of my mouth. 

I had to get hot tea and swish it around in my mouth and promised the dog I would take any more of her treats!!


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## tallbm (Dec 30, 2019)

archeryrob said:


> I thought about this thread yesterday. I had shot a doe and she was pretty fat. I trimmed all the rump fat and visceral fat and saved it in a 1 gallon bag during processing. Even pulled a few flank sections in two layers of fat that I normally just cut what I can and donate the rest to the woods critters.
> 
> So I took all this out to the grill to fry it and render it. It makes Black powder lube for wads and I want to try making candles with it too. I fried the meat flank slices first. Figure I'll save them for pooch treats and feed some fried fat scrapes to the chickens. I gave the dog one and I looked at one and was like wow, that looks good. So I eat one. 30 seconds later I remember why I don't eat deer fat as I feel like someone crisco'd the roof of my mouth.
> 
> I had to get hot tea and swish it around in my mouth and promised the dog I would take any more of her treats!!



Lol sometimes we need a reminder but it didnt hurt anything and I bet the dog loved the treats :)


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## smokinbarrles (Jan 13, 2020)

Older post, but like others here either its food for my dogs, or food for the hogs.


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## bnew17 (Oct 30, 2020)

Never had an appetite for eating the ribs by themselves, but if you are not cutting out the meat between the ribs for ground you are missing out. All butchers in our area do it.


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## sapper299 (Nov 3, 2020)

Venison Ribs can be really good, but you have to live in the south. I smoke mine every year, they get about 1/2" of rib meat on them and are fine.  The deer I shot back home in Michigan have a lot of tallow in their fat and its like eating a candle. You do have to eat them hot and you do have to trim as much fat as you can. Just lay some fat back or bacon over them and smike, then wrap.


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## JLeonard (Nov 3, 2020)

You can tell its getting close to hunting season......The old game threads are getting revived. 
Jim


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## archeryrob (Nov 5, 2020)

sapper299 said:


> The deer I shot back home in Michigan have a lot of tallow in their fat and its like eating a candle.



Ditto for Maryland. I just shot an 8 point last week and he had a fat cap on his rump 1 1/2" thick. His flanks were awful too. It was extremely difficult trimming that just to grind. Some I gave up on and said "The coons and foxes got to eat too." They love it too. This buck had a fat ball inside him that looked like a potato. I went back to measure it two hours later and a fox or something eaten all the fat already. When I rinsed out the cavity it looked like cottage cheese running out on the ground.

I think deer in various areas are wildly different. If you got skinny deer eat them ribs, but cooking them here tastes like eating Crisco out of the can.


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## 1MoreFord (Nov 5, 2020)

A guy I used to work with always brought his deer ribs to work for the other guys in the maintenance crew.

He'd put the ribs in a good sized crock pot and then take all the remnants of BBQ sauces he had left around the kitchen and pour over the ribs. He'd thin down the sauce with some stock or water.  Sometimes add some chopped onion.  He'd start the ribs at night and let them cook away all night and then bring them in to work and let them continue cooking.  Sometime mid morning they would be tender enough the bones would start turning loose and he'd fish the bones out until all that was left was meat and thin sauce.

There was never anything left except the sauce.


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## Bossbrott (Nov 29, 2020)

id suspect some well aged venison tomahawk chops would go fantastic over a quick/hot oak fire.


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## K9BIGDOG (Nov 30, 2020)

Bossbrott said:


> id suspect some well aged venison tomahawk chops would go fantastic over a quick/hot oak fire.


Not a bad thought, but then you're really talking about the loin (backstrap) meat rather than rib meat.  I agree 100% with archeryrob about the regional differences in deer.  Up here in NY unless you're in farm country where there's a lot of corn and other crops that the deer are feeding on the venison is vastly different from what I've taken in other states, especially in the south.  And the deer up here in colder climates have a huge amount of fat on them.  We can kind of predict how bad the winter is going to be up here by how much fat is on the deer.  I've had years where my deer had literally inches thick slabs of fat on its back and flanks and we had brutal winters those years, and other years not so much and a milder winter.  In the mountains when the winter is bad the food supply can get scarce for the deer and winterkill/starvation is always a problem.  I think it's Mother Nature's way of providing for them by somehow packing on those fat reserves to get them through.   Our deer are also mostly eating beech nuts, acorns and grass and certain leaves.  Definitely leaves behind a different flavor profile in the fat!!    Also to be honest, if I put a shot through the boiler on a deer, most times a good portion of the ribs is either damaged or has a lot of bloodshot on it and it's unsalvageable anyway.


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## ihocky2 (Dec 3, 2020)

From the reading here it seems like where you live in the country makes a huge difference. It seems the southern deer are less fatty. In Pennsylvania, I wouldn't go near deer ribs on the rack. In the last month we took 1 buck and 2 doe, at least an inch of fat on the hind end. One of the doe I kept the flank for fajitas, but I spent 20 minutes separating the layers of meat and fat, the fat was as thick as the meat. The ribs had a nice layer of meat on top and between the ribs, but they were heavily layer with fat and very heavy tallowed fat. I'll slice off the top meat and then slice out between the ribs and try to reduce the amount of fat going into the grinder. I won't waste the meat since I can grind it, especially for sausage, but I won't use it for BBQ.

Especially around my area there can be a big difference between deer within a few miles of each other. Some are more in the woods with laurels and acorns, others are in the wheat, soybean, and corn fields.


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## dennis8483 (Dec 31, 2020)

dwolfpak said:


> Getting a couple venison racks from this years hunt.  Anyone have suggestions on smoking them?



Buddy of mine used to do them in crockpot until all the suet/tallow fat cooked off and floated to top. I'd start with that, then take crock pot outside and flood it with warm water until the tallow floats off (so you dont pull the ribs right back through the later of that waxy fat when removing them from crock). Then treat/season however you want for smoker. Just my suggestion. 

20 years of cooking 4 or so deer a year. Havent tried what I described yet, but have been playing with it in my mind for awhile now


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