The Elk Rib Pt.1 (and More!)

This is part one of an epic journey. When someone takes down an Elk, and asks if I want a cut of the prize – you say yes. You try to search around to see what others have done and realize it hasn’t been posted on all that much. Well let’s see what we can do to this thing!

Told a couple buddies to come by, and bring some appetizers as I didn’t know how these would turn out. A day spent drinking beers and smoking meat is never a bad day. I say this is a part one because they turned out good, but not great. I have another half still in the freezer, and here’s to hoping we can do it better.

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Recipe

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The Prep Table

I received these elegantly packaged in a garbage bag. Wouldn’t have had it any other way. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pack this in my freezer, so I had to phone-a-friend and use his deep freezer. Thanks Doug. We wrapped it in some freezer paper and when it was show time, we got to the dance.

Here’s what we’re working with. I dragged out the prep table, made a foil-tray to put the fat and got to trimming.

This was about half-way through the trim. Used the excellent Victorinox knife and tried to make a uniform trim all around. I’m no butcher, I just do what I think looks nice.

Trimmed up and ready to go. These appeared to be pretty meaty up top, not so much between the bones. I’m thinking 3-2-1 style for these, so let’s get the smoker rolling smoke at 225 degrees and get them on the grates. That’s about all for the preparation. Let me know what you think on the trim job, do okay or what needs worked on? Thanks!

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The Process

What I wanted most of all was to taste the elk. I didn’t want to over-season at all, just to add a little bit to it. I think we nailed it. I used my Meaty Bits Beef Rub (SPOG – Salt, Pepper, Onion, Garlic), a little bit of Meat Church’s Garlic and Herb, and an even smaller amount of Herbs de Provence. I recall when I did my Beef Tenderloin, the herby blend was great while still tasting the meat – so I did a similar mix here.

This was just before the pull. I should’ve pulled this earlier. Smoke already got to it, but it was starting to dry out a little bit. During the part two post, I’ll cut this time for sure.

This was another interesting thought. I usually use brown sugar on my pork ribs, but again – I wanted to taste the elk. I needed a little sweet, but not an overpowering sugar. Agave syrup won the race. We laid out a massive foil wrap and laid down some Worcestershire, Parkay, agave syrup and some jarred garlic. Enough to impart flavor, but not enough to overwhelm. Risky moves, but it worked!

After 2 hours, we removed it from the wrap, and splashed the fat all over the driveway. Crazy how much these shrunk down. Put these back on the rack for another 30 minutes or so.

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The Result

So far so good! Besides being a little bit overdone, they actually looked damn good.

Took a knife and cut a bone for everyone to try. These were nowhere near fall of the bone, but you could bite through pretty easily. It was a super cold day, so you can see the fat was already cooling on the board. The taste was exactly what I wanted. You tasted meat, but it wasn’t too much of this or that. I can’t wait to put the other rack on there and adjust the times and see what we come up with. I was pleased with how the seasonings/wrap turned out, so not sure what else I’d change there – but we got some time.

Remember I told you we weren’t sure how these would turn out – so told everyone to bring a back-up plan? Let’s see what that looked like:

The Bonus

Chicken wings, bacon wrapped tenderloins – both pork and beef. Splashed all kinds of seasonings on this one. We used some Tajin and Jayell’s for birds, and some meat church blends for the tenderloins.

Always fun to drag a second smoker out.

Good day, good eats!

Update 2/28: Cooked up the second half yesterday, and they turned out much better! Way less time and more oil/buttery moisture. Stay tuned – coming this Summer!

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The Recipe