friesian_rain said:
I'm going to be making up a batch of smoked venison beans in my Bradley smoker this weekend. The plan:
I'm using Pecan wood, 3 to 4 hrs. at 225 degrees. Ingredients will be the typical baked bean recipe; bacon, navy beans, onion, Worcestershire, mustard, ketchup, brown sugar, molasses......
Anyone have any suggestions or helpful hints and how to make this perfect? This is going to be a side dish for the dry-aged prime rib roast I'll be doing on the Weber grill.
Thanks
Thanks for the replies everybody, Bigwheel's beans seems to be the #1 choice.
Here's how it all turned out for me and lessons learned.
Lesson #1 if you want to be notified when someone replies to your topic you should subscribe to the forum; I just found all your replies.
Lesson #2 don't hand someone who knows nothing about digital cameras your camera because they don't realize that "erase all" actually means "gets rid of your pictures permanently"; there will be no pictures today.
So, I winged it alone on the beans and all my friends and family thought they were excellent. Big hit ! Since I have tons of time on my hands I made them from scratch starting with the dried navy beans. I did smoke 4 hours with Bradley pecan hockey pucks at average of 225 degrees; total time in smoker 6 hours. (outside temps were in the low 20's with occasional 20 - 35 mph gusts). Beans thickened up beautifully, I stirred occasionally to keep top from drying. The 10 lb prime rib was almost all consumed, just a few bones left. I did a dry rub with sea salt, thyme, fresh ground tellicherry & pink peppercorns, garlic, rosemary, thyme and cayenne. Indirect heat in the Weber over mesquite lump charcoal until temp of 137 degrees. Pulled and let sit for 20-25 minutes. Sides were twice baked potatoes, kale cooked with bacon, fruit salad. And a variety of beer, wine, whiskey and tequila...... I had to drink a shot or two of tequila to warm me while hanging around outside in the snow and cold LOL
No one touches the camera but me next time ! Thanks for letting me share my grilling/smoking story. And to bore you even further, I'm going to add my Venison Baked Bean recipe below. (NOTE: I don't normally measure ingredients and tend to make up things as I go along, this is the most accurate recipe I could put on "paper". The great thing is you can change this recipe up tons of different ways!)
Smoked Venison Baked Beans
1 lb venison, raw, diced
12 oz. venison breakfast sausage, raw, crumbled (my homemade sausage)
1/2 lb (two links) venison hot italian sausage " " cooked, diced and added last
12 oz bacon, chopped
2 lbs dried navy beans, cooked
2 medium white onions, chopped
2-3 shallots, about 1/4 cup chopped
4 cloves garlic minced
2 tsp fresh ground peppercorn
3 tsp Hawaiian sea salt, course ground
1 32 oz bottle ketchup
4 tabs Worcestershire sauce
2 tabs Dijon mustard
2 tabs stone ground mustard
4 tabs chili powder (the one I used was a sweet/medium blend)
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup molasses ( unsulphured blackstrap for best taste )
2 tsp hot paprika
Rinse and sort navy beans. Do quick soak method, then boil beans with a bit of olive oil until cooked. (see your favorite recipe book for details) Drain beans, reserving liquid, put beans back in pot.
In large fry, at medium high heat, start frying bacon, when slightly cooked add diced venison, cook a couple minutes then add crumbled breakfast sausage, cook a couple minutes then add onion, shallot and garlic. Add salt and pepper. Cook until onion is translucent. There will be a nice amount of liquid in the pan from the meat and onion, turn heat up to high and stirring constantly, cook until liquid is reduced by almost half.
To beans in pot add remaining ingredients of ketchup through paprika, stir well. Add cooked meat/onion mixture, with diced cooked italian sausage. Taste. Add anything you want to your liking. Add a cup or two of the reserved liquid from cooking the beans, this will soak in and mix just right with the ketchup mixture keeping beans moist and making a wonderful sauce. These cooked up sweet and spicy. (the two links I added were loaded with crushed red pepper and spiced up the beans just right).
Pour into foil pan and put in heated smoker, smoke for 3-4 hours at 225 degrees, cook until desired consistency and color. Don't forget to stir the beans every 30 to 40 minutes for the first hour and a half or so. Then just a couple times after that so the top doesn't get dry.