Turkey Day is fast approaching

Last weekend, I thought it was a good idea to do something of a run-through for Thanksgiving Day.  Last year was a bit of a disaster!  I had a 20 lbs. turkey and didn’t want to get up at 3:00 AM to cook it, so I figured I’d indirectly grill it.

Good thought, but the wind picked up and got the temp in the cooker way too high, so the bird went over 200 degrees!  It was done, but dry.  Thankfully, my mom had made a good amount of gravy!

The trial run was to try out some things and to see how long it would take a bird to smoke on the big smoker.

I wanted to take turkey breast into work to see if anyone wanted a bird smoked this year, so I did 3 turkey breasts along with a fresh turkey.  My friend Josh also had the fore and hind quarters of a young deer he had gotten earlier in the season, and I told him to bring it all over so we could put it on the smoker, too.  And, of course, I put a couple of fatties on.

The big question in smoking turkey is always how to prep the bird.  I decided to brine it to see what I thought, as I hadn’t done that to a whole turkey before.  I’d injected, but not brined.  I took the advice of BBQ Bob’s BBQ and Beer Bash, and kept the salt do 3/4 cup per gallon of water.  I also used a brining bag which was big enough to hold a 30 lb turkey, I’d bet!  Why brine?  It really does help with the moisture level of the bird, and it can add some other flavors, too.

With the large bag, it took about 2 1/2 gallons of water to cover the bird (you want to make sure the whole bird is covered or you won’t get the benefit of the brine throughout the bird).  To the salt water, I added about a cup of Maker’s Mark whisky, about half a cup of molasses, a handful of peppercorns, about 8 sage leaves and about 4 sprigs of fresh thyme.  I zipped up the bag and put it in a cooler with plenty of ice.  The key here is to make sure the turkey never gets over 40 degrees F!  Very imporant!

The turkey soaked overnight, then I removed it from the bag and rinsed it off.  Rinsing it off will take the salt off the outside of the bird, but if the brine did its job, moisture and flavor will already have penetrated the bird.  Not rinsing will cause the bird to be too salty.

Inside the bird, I stuffed in braeburn apple quarters, onion, celery, carrots and some mroe thyme and sage.  I used a bbq skewer to keep the cavity somewhat closed so the goodies wouldn’t fall out.

To get the skin crispy, make sure to pat it dry very well.  Keep in mind, though, that on free range birds, the skin may be too thick to really enjoy, though, and the brine may make it too salty even with rinsing.

The turkey went on the smoker, which I took up to about 275-300 degrees F.  The bird was about 12 lbs, and it took just over 4 hours to get to an internal temp of 165 degrees F. 
This is the right temp for the bird!  After letting it rest for a while, I carved the bird, and served it along with buttermilk mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, asparagus and homemade yeast rolls.

The next day, my wife made turkey stock from all the leftover bones.  If you’d like to read about carving a turkey, please read my post on Get Your Grill On.  My wife’s turkey stock is the subject of my latest entry on The Cook’s Kitchen, and the yeast rolls we had are in my post this week on Just Baking. (note: the posts on the WellFed Network may not be up yet… Try again if you don’t see them yet!)

Thanksgiving Day is going to go very well this year!