TALKIN' TURKEY!! (The official/unofficial turkey thread)

Goyo626 said:

Im thinking of dry brining a turkey. My question is once it has been brined for a couple of days then rinsed and allowed to dry in the fridge, do I put a normal amount of rub on/under the skin? go light on the rub? Or reduce the salt in the rub recipe?

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I've not dry brined before, but I've always wanted to try it.


Here's a thread with a link to an article about dry brining that brother leanza put up a few years ago. In this thread seasoning is discussed. They actually suggest just putting herbs or rub WITH the salt during the dry brine process:

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=97467

SmokinOkie said:

Here are my thoughts about "injecting" vs Brining. Obviously, since I wrote the book on brining about 15 years ago (OMG, really that long?) I like the brine. Link to Brining and Turkey 101 are in my signature.

My issue with injections is one of science. Well actually viscosity. think injections tend to just sit in the one spot. Depending on the injection and length of time, all you will do is flavor the spot of the injection. With a LOT of practice you can spread it out somewhat, but you will have a bunch of track marks in the bird.

I'm a big fan of "go ahead an try it". We settled on brining vs injecting years ago in a side by side taste test. And SO many of the commercial injections are water and salt, that you can get some of the benefits of brining, but like brining, let them sit 12 to 24 hours (or more) for the injection to have time to spread

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That's pretty much what I was saying above(below), but you worded it much better I think. :thumb:

Wampus said:

Oh there's different schools of thought on that. Some suggest that injecting INSTEAD of brining is the way to go. A lot of flavor can be added with an injection for sure. Personally, I think that since brining acts on a cellular level, you can get a more complete, evenly distributed flavor with a brine vs injection where you have different "pockets" of injection in and among the meat fibers. I think that once both are cooked, one would be hard pressed to really tell a difference though.

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Humble Soul said:

On a 22.5" kettle, is having the coals on two sides with the bird in the middle the way most do it? Or is banking coals all on one side ok as well?

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I've done it both ways. If the turkey's not too big (wide), I prefer to have coals on each side of the turkey so I get more even heat on the bird. If the coals are a little too close for comfort, you can bank them on one side, but when I've done this I've had to make sure the watch the color and rotate the bird to keep even browning of the skin at the thighs. Again, depending on the size of your bird, it will only push over to one side so much before the lid will hit it. This is why I like leaving the bird in the center and make the coals fit around it.

One thing I've done to help guard against the heat is to use a couple of strategically placed bricks stacked up as close to the cooking grate as possible and then bank coals on the outside of that. This will prevent as much direct heat from the coals to the thighs. The bricks act as diffusers and are a great way to keep the coals pushed against the outside wall of the kettle and prevent the pile from "creeping" toward the center.

A drip pan is another way you can do this, but I find that if I can put a paver brick or something on the outside of the drip pan and then the coals go outside of the brick(s)/paver(s). A foil pan alone will help, but it doesn't deflect the heat as much I don't think.




The great thing about cooking on a kettle is that you don't need a LOT of lit coals to get the temp of the cooker up. I prefer using a "divided minion method" where I'll fill up the sides with unlit coals (and some smoke wood chunk) and then just put about 3-5 lit coals on each pile. Then regulate the cooker temps using the vents. It won't take a lot of coals to get the temps up to 300+ (if that's what you're going for) and this method will also prevent you from having to add lit coals to keep your temps up.

silverfinger said:

What is the ideal size for smoking a bird? And when is it too big for outdoor smoking? What's to big?

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I'd say the ideal size for just about any kind of cooking is about 12 lbs.
No particular reason why I guess, other than that size bird will fit in a brine bucket easily, will fit on the Turkey Cannon, etc.

I'm going to do a 20 lb'er this year. I just won't be able to use the Cannon.
No matter, I'll just stuff it with aromatics, truss it and smoke it.


If it'll fit on your smoker, it'll smoke.