Wampus's Thanksgiving Day Smoked Ham and Turkey FEAST

12 lb Norbest turkey, 9.5% enhanced.
Thawed in the fridge over about 5 days.
Brined for 24 hours in:

• 2 gallons water
• 2 Cups salt
• 1 Cup dark brown sugar
• 1 palmful of whole peppercorns
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 1 good long squeeze of honey (I'd guess about 1/2 cup)

T-Day morning, I made up a herb/carlic/citrus butter with

• 2 sticks melted butter
• Juice of 2 oranges
• 1 whole package of fresh thyme, finely chopped
• 1 whole package of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 1 whole bud of garlic, minced and made into a paste

Rubbed the herb butter all over the bird, especially under the skin, in the cavity, etc.

Put about a clove's worth of garlic and a couple of TBS herbs into the turkey cannon with some AJ. Mounted the turkey and trussed it up:



Then onto the ham.....

About a 10 lb shank portion ham from the hog that my brother and I went in on this spring. Scored the fat and rubbed it down with SM Sweet & Spicy:




The set up:



The ham went on the ECB, loaded with lump, pecan and oak. No water in the bowl and ham on the top grate.

The turkey went on the UDS, rollin with 1 chunk each of cherry and pecan. 1 quart of homemade smoked chicken stock went into the pan to help catch drippings.

Started the turkey cookin at 325 & let the drum crawl up to about 400. I was having a bit of trouble with getting the ECB up as high, so I had to do a little charcoal maintenance. After that, it was finally boogyin along, but 2 hours in, the turkey was about 20 degrees ahead of the ham, so I choked the intakes down on the UDS and dropped cook temp down to about 250 for the next 1-1.5 hours.

At about 3.5 hours in, opened all intakes on the turkey (UDS) and let it crank back up to around 400.

Made up a mustard/whiskey glaze for the ham and glazed it for the last 1/2 hour of the cook. The glaze recipe was:

• 1 1/4 Cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 Cup dijon mustard
• 1/4 Tsp ground clove
• 1/4 Tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 Tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/8 Tsp ground allspice
• 2 TBS Whiskey

The turkey drippings were the base for the giblet gravy.


Probably the purtiest bird I've smoked yet. Color was perfect!


And the ham:




Carved:


The rest of the menu was our typical family Thanksgiving menu (in order of appearance):

• Shrimp Cocktail (ME)
• Cheeseball (My son made this!)
• Pumpkin Fluff (Mom)
• Cream Cheese mashed potatoes (ME)
• Pork sausage bread stuffing (Mrs. Wampus)
• Sweet potatoes (MIL)
• Green bean casserole (Brother/SIL)
• Broccoli cheese casserole (Brother/SIL)
• Homemade applesauce (ME)
• Roasted carrots (Mom)
• Macaroni & Cheese (MIL)
• Cranberry Salad (Mom)
• Biscuits (Mrs. Wampus)
• Homemade turkey giblet gravy (Mom put this together)
• Homemade Pumpkin Cream Pie (SIL)
• Homemade Deep Dish Apple Pie (ME)
• Homemade Pumpkin Pie (Mom)

Here's some of the sides:










One of my favorite things is to have lots of people around our table(s) enjoying the food! Everyone loved it!







I hope you all had as great a day as I did!


Thanks for lookin!

THANKS ALL!

gtr said:

Was the ham a fresh ham or had it been cured/smoked previous to the cook yesterday? I've been wanting to cure/smoke a fresh ham - been doing the double smoked thing for a while.

Click to expand...

It was a fresh ham when the hog was slaughtered this spring, but I went ahead and paid the butcher to cold smoke it before I picked it up. I probably should have just done it myself, but chickened out for some reason.

I do have a fresh whole ham (butt and shank portion together) in the freezer that I've had for some time.

That one, though, was already smoked. Still turned out pretty good!