Awesome job, Evouret!
Not Evbouret, but I thought I'd chime in. I'm no master smoker either, having only experimented with it a few times, so ymmv. Please feel free to correct any mistakes I've made, but so far I'm still alive!
If you smoke the meat properly then it does not need to be cooked. Trim off excess fat to prevent the meat from going prematurely rancid and cut the meat into thinner strips so that it dries quicker and more evenly. Fat is hard to come by in the wild so cook it in a soup and enjoy!
I prefer the Dakota Fire Hole method of building a fire in a small hillside (flat areas work too, but I like the hill method better) and the "chimney" runs through to the top of the hill letting the smoke out, minus the fire and high heat, which can cook the meat instead of smoking it. This also prevents the wood framed smoker and cover from bursting into flames, which I have done, so you don't have to watch the fire as closely and allows you to do other things while smoking. For the cover I've built small frames and used my jacket or a blanket and I've also used banana leaves and elephant ears in more exotic locales. Maybe pine boughs etc. would work, but it could add a piney flavor to the meat. Add hardwood of your choosing (you may need to soak the wood to prevent it from burning), and avoid softwoods and resinous woods (and toxic woods like Oleander, of course) which taint the flavor of the meat. Check out "Dakota Fire Hole" on Google Images for a better idea of my very poor explanation.
I've typically smoked it over night, so probably around 10 hours or so. I check it occassionally and when it's stiff and starts to break when bent then I call it good. This means the moisture has been driven out and is ready for longer storage, but it's no longer tender and juicy. For immediate consumption pull it off when it looks good, but I don't know how to check to see if it's properly cooked enought to kill nasties.
If you build your fire hole in a small hill then you can stack your hardwood near it and sleep close to the fire (preferably with a reflector wall behind you too, of course) using the fire hole as a reflector fire and just reach out to replenish the smoker wood as needed without fully waking up. The chimney effect also draws the smoke away from you making things more comfortable in that regard also, so you don't get choked out while trying to sleep.
FYI: smoked meat is dark red and doesn't looked "cooked." If you have doubts, cook the meat. Tear it into strips and throw it into your stew. Boiling will kill any bad bacteria.
As an aside I started using the Dakota Fire Hole in a hill after seeing something similar at a Revolutionary War re-enactment camp out East. According to them the soldiers would pile up a hill of dirt and they would each dig individual L-shaped holes in it. Feed the bottom with small branches and use the top to set your cook pot on to cook your meal. I thought it was ingenious! The small hill they built was probably 5 or 6 feet across and about a dozen "stoves" were build into it.
Sorry for the hijack.
Kage
