Smoked some pheasant today!

[jstrommen13]

First time smoking pheasant today. Best pheasant I have ate yet. Just looked up some recipes online and found one that was appealing. It called for 10 birds but I only had 3 I did from a game farm hunt I did this April.

I boiled a half gallon of 100% apple juice and added a cup of non iodized table salt, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, and a teaspoon of black pepper. Once it was all dissolved I added another half gallon of apple juice. Now I had to let it all cool before I put it in the brine, don't want to ruin the meat by putting it in to warm brine. Once in the brine I left it for 12 hours in the fridge (I used a bucket to brine them in). After 12 hours rinse the birds and put your favorite dry BBQ seasoning on them(inside ànd out). I used cabelas maple jalepeno seasoning. Then wrap the breasts in bacon and smoke thèm at 250 for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours or to an inrernal temp of 160. The full recipe was double what I did here. Here are some pics

Last picture is of my best hunting buddy Hans. He's a German wirehair and the coolest dog I've had yet

Sorry some pics are turned. Haven't quite figured out the picture postings

[smalliehunter]

Wow! They look so tasty..

[eyeguy 54]

nice! I smoked 3 one time and not good. lol

[Todd Caswell]

Looks good, do they turn out better if the smoker is on it's side?

[jstrommen13]

Haha yea just gotta defy the laws of gravity. :-) just got the smoker for Christmas so only thing done so far has been some fish and a pork loin roast. So far I'm loving everything smoked

[otterman91105]

Baby back ribs and pork butts also turn out awesome and they are easy to do.

[jstrommen13]

Pork butt is definetly on my list to do. Next I'm gonna try some country style ribs

[Farley]

Looks like my wirehair (Schultz)! i like a pickled brine on smoked pheasants. Same process just use pickling spice in the brine.