Just in time for the first weekend of summer, our friend Matt “Flatlander” Cheever tells us about his awesome DIY BBQ project, plus provides tips for roasting venison:

Sometimes sitting around a campfire dreaming up projects, schemes and adventures with our buddies is the best part of deer camp.  In one of those conversations among friends I was offered a free 250-gallon propane tank. “Wouldn’t that make a great BBQ pit,” we all reckoned. “You could put it on a trailer and make it mobile.”

I like a challenge… But maybe I bit off more than I could chew?

Six years and several thousand dollars later my “free” project is finished! It’s worth every penny!

Fifty-five pounds of welding wire, two different trailers (single axle wasn’t enough) and the pit is done. It will last for decades, feed thousands and bring together friends and family for a common bond, something we need a lot more of in this country.

Thirty-two-hundred pounds of pure steel beauty is now rolling smoke and cooking hogs, venison, turkey, fish and anything else that walks or comes into range.

This dream kind of started with the idea of roasting a whole deer. As with cooking a whole hog, it would be a striking visualization. But in all honesty, it’s better to do deer quarters or roasts so as not to over-cook prime cuts. So here’s how you do it:

–De-bone or bone-in is fine. Either way, I like to inject the deer meat with Creole butter and garlic from the Cajun injector company. Then I smear it with a thick coating of yellow mustard (don’t worry you won’t taste any mustard once the meat is roasted, it tenderizes the venison and turns to almost a BBQ crust). Then season with salt and black pepper.

–Roast the meat on your cooker about an hour a pound at 250 degrees…wrap in foil it after two hours (meat only takes on smoke for two hours anyway). It doesn’t hurt to baste the meat during cooking with a beer or apple juice, or maybe even hard cider in the fall.

–Pull the meat off at 165 degrees internal temp if you want to slice it like a thin steak or brisket. Pull it off at 195 degrees if you want to shred it. I like to let the meat sit and rest a good 20-30 minutes after coming off the cooker.

–If you plan to cook a large back quarter of a deer, you may want to drape some bacon or pork belly over the roast to hold moisture and keep it from drying out.

–When the meat is done, serve it in soft-shell tacos, on a bun or however you like, but be sure to do it while sitting around a fire with your buddies, scheming up your next crazy idea! Be safe, God bless and BBQ on–Flatlander