Volunteer turkey

I was at a doctor's birthday party at a winery last night. I was invited because I'm usually the cook at the other parties and that kind of put me and my wife on the "usual people to invite" list.

A lady who owns a HS cheeleader uniform company, came up to me and asked if I might possibly come to her house on Christmas and fry her a turkey. I said "no, but I'll water smoke one" (I stopped frying birds 10+ years ago). she got all happy and I set everything up. I start smoking at noon on Sunday and I deliver it to her (10 miles from here) in time for them to eat by 5pm. the water smoker pretty much runs itself so it's not really that much labor to do it.

I can say this lady is a fan of my cooking. A few years ago, I was out cooking in 97 degree weather for a party (I had an ez-up and some fans) and she came out and sat down with me (the first time we met) and asked a zillion questions. She sat there, joining in on all the "cooks samples" as they came off the grills.

She's the kind of lady that would fit in at a back yard country party or a fancy wine tasting event.

While she was sitting there, sweating her butt off with me as everyone else was in the AC having fun, she earned a friend (and a Christmas turkey). :-D

I just cooked 12 birds for Christmas presents and now I'm going to cook this 19lb turkey and 5.5lb chicken on Christmas morning. The 12 bird cookout had a glitch. brining in ice caused half of the birds to freeze. I assumed the salty ice would melt. I was wrong.

This time I'm starting with ice water.
I covered the turkey with big rons original and the chicken with HOH and gently filled it so the rub stayed on the birds.

I will start around 8am.

freezing my birds is one thing. Freezing someone elses Christmas dinner would be totally different. I went straight to the bathtub this morning to see that my birds are good. everything was fine. If I didn't cook the 12 birds yesterday and learn that lesson, I would probably have a 19 pound block of ice this morning



The turkey went on at 8am. I need to finish it before 4pm. I will "gift wrap" it in the heated cooler so it will be fine until they are ready for it and then I'm off to my day job. I have $280 reservations in Saint Louis for new years weekend and the boss gave me a lot to do before then. Illinois to Nebraska to Nevada to Kentucky to Illinois by next weekend. that means over 700 miles a day.


Steralized the rack.


Added mesquite


Shoe-horned the bird in




And now I'm going back to bed

All went well. That 19 lb bird smoked for 9.5 hours. I will post the rest of the pics on Monday if I have a signal in Nebraska.

I got a virus yesterday and 4 programs say it is cleaned out but everytime I connect to the internet, a bunch of inbound and outbound megs are being used. I will be back next weekend when I get home and grab the other laptop (and all the crap to reload Windows on this laptop )
I will load the last of these pics then.

I finally heard about my turkey. It went to a small family reunion and when they sat down to eat, my juicy bird was the topic of conversation for the whole meal (SCORE!)

Happy Holidays everyone!!

Sorry for the long delay. between the virus and my boss working me everyday since and including Christmas, I have just been trying to get enough sleep.

Here's the last of the pics


I cut up a drum to make a double lined UDS but I got worried about rust and didn't do it. It does make an awesome wind screen though


The finished turkey


the rest of these pics are lunch (another crippled chicken)






There's no smoke ring but the mesquite flavor went all the way to the bone

NorthwestBBQ said:

You should compete.

Click to expand...

The ex and I used to compete in chili cookoffs for a few years