If you have the roast submerged, it gets convective heat transfer; if it's above the liquid, it only gets radiative heat transfer (and is obviously going to be a little dryer.) Radiative heat transfer works well from inside cast iron or the right kind of ceramic pot, but not from glass or stainless or a lot of other pot materials. (That is, the bits of the roast sticking out will get browned, as well as dried.)
Sometimes people turn the roast over if it's being slow cooked, sorta two thirds of the way through, or they try to make sure it's certainly all submerged.
When I do this sort of thing (usually with pork shoulder, so more fat than even plump fall venison) I tend to saute some chopped onions until about half done, plunk the roast on top (this is in a ceramic or cast iron dutch oven, although the specific examples are french :) and then add stuff. Chopped potatoes, dried apple, dried cranberry, anything like that; turnip, carrots, whatever. Then it gets some fairly acidic fruit juice; grape, cranberry, cherry, pomegranate, anything like that. (The whisky and the maple syrup (a dram each) over the roast are optional.) And then in the oven at ~300 F for about five hours for a five pound roast. That leaves it just about sliceable when cold, rather than falling apart To get venison to disintegrating I'd expect about an hour and a half a pound.
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If you have the roast submerged, it gets convective heat transfer; if it's above the liquid, it only gets radiative heat transfer (and is obviously going to be a little dryer.) Radiative heat transfer works well from inside cast iron or the right kind of ceramic pot, but not from glass or stainless or a lot of other pot materials. (That is, the bits of the roast sticking out will get browned, as well as dried.)
Sometimes people turn the roast over if it's being slow cooked, sorta two thirds of the way through, or they try to make sure it's certainly all submerged.
When I do this sort of thing (usually with pork shoulder, so more fat than even plump fall venison) I tend to saute some chopped onions until about half done, plunk the roast on top (this is in a ceramic or cast iron dutch oven, although the specific examples are french :) and then add stuff. Chopped potatoes, dried apple, dried cranberry, anything like that; turnip, carrots, whatever. Then it gets some fairly acidic fruit juice; grape, cranberry, cherry, pomegranate, anything like that. (The whisky and the maple syrup (a dram each) over the roast are optional.) And then in the oven at ~300 F for about five hours for a five pound roast. That leaves it just about sliceable when cold, rather than falling apart To get venison to disintegrating I'd expect about an hour and a half a pound.