Smoking my 1st turkey this weekend- looking for advice/suggestions

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ATLSean

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I'm smoking a 12 lbs turkey this Saturday. This is the first of a series of cooks to get dialed in on smoking birds before Thanksgiving. I'm using a BWS Party G2 with water in the pan, was planning on cooking around 275. Should I brine? Inject? Just use a dry rub? Does that temp sound good? I was planning to use apple, but I've heard cherry is good too. I'm really looking for suggestions, I've got a good bit of time to experiment so I'd love to hear from everyone. Thanks, Brethren!
 
ATLSean said:
I'm smoking a 12 lbs turkey this Saturday. This is the first of a series of cooks to get dialed in on smoking birds before Thanksgiving. I'm using a BWS Party G2 with water in the pan, was planning on cooking around 275. Should I brine? Inject? Just use a dry rub? Does that temp sound good? I was planning to use apple, but I've heard cherry is good too. I'm really looking for suggestions, I've got a good bit of time to experiment so I'd love to hear from everyone. Thanks, Brethren!
Click to expand...

Brining the turkey is a must in my opinion...

K C MIKE How to brine a turkey

PDF files in the first message

Patio Dady O's ultimate-thanksgiving-turkey-brine
 
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Is the turkey already "enhanced?" If so, I would not brine or inject. As for the temp, I like to go a little higher than that on turkey to get a better skin. As for seasoning, I am a fan of a simple s/p/g/o for turkey. Pecan all the way for wood type when smoking bird (IMO of course).
 
I'd go 300-325 at the grate for crispy skin, even higher, no wrong answer under 375 or above 275. Anything below, I'm thinking unsatisfying skin and possibly too much exposure to smoke. Do let us know how it turns out... I've never done a whole turkey (and likely won't again this season with my holiday travels having me away from my damn cookers!) :sad:
 
I would butterfly the turkey open. It will cook faster and help the dark meat finish before drying out the white meat.

Also put the neck, spine, and gizzards in a pan with some water/beer/chicken stock and vegetables and cook the turkey over that drip pan. It will infuse nice flavors into the bird while it's cooking and make a great turkey gravy/au jus when done.
 
If you are using anything other than a butterball Turkey, you need to brine. If you are using a butterball, you can still brine it but you don't have to. I did one last thanksgiving that was a butterball. I did not brine it. I smoked it at 225 for about 9 hours. It was turkey heaven.

 
sliding_billy said:
Is the turkey already "enhanced?" If so, I would not brine or inject. As for the temp, I like to go a little higher than that on turkey to get a better skin. As for seasoning, I am a fan of a simple s/p/g/o for turkey. Pecan all the way for wood type when smoking bird (IMO of course).
Click to expand...

It's not enhanced. I wanted to make sure I got turkey, not Frankenbird flavor! I will definitely try the Pecan.
 
Brine!!! I used a five gallon bucket and brined for 24 hours. make sure you take it out, pat dry and refrigerate for a few hours, this lets the skin dry and will make for a great skin! I cooked on the UDS @ 325.
 

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With water in the water pan make sure you cook towards the top of your party. I like to cook turkey at about 325, but my party likes about 250 with water in the pan. Brined if it is from a supermaket (not enhanced) and unbrined is fine if it's a free range "organic" bird. Cook breast side down till it hits about 145, then flip.
 
Sean out of all the suggestions the most important imo are...

1) cut out the backbone (spatchcock) lay it down breast up and press down.

2) do yourself a favor and cook over 325 @ a MINUMUM.

3) turkeys are the only thing i brine (but make sure do pat down and dry in the fridge at least for 12 hours) Brining the turkey will bring other flavors in your brine into the meat.
 
Oh one more thing. Normally all my birds go with out a drip pan because i want the drippings to go to my coals (UDS) but with turkeys nothing beats gravy so i catch part of my drippings and letting some go to the coals.
 
Should I pull the water pan? My BWS tends to run about 250-260 with the pan, that seems to be its "sweet spot". Reading here and other places, 325 seems to be a really common temp. I've never run without water in it before, but I'm not sure how well that would go in getting to 325 with it.
 
I have been thinking about Thanksgiving for the last few weeks. I broke down this weekend and had the wife pick up a small turkey on Saturday. She brought home a 13.5lber Butterball. My plan was to brine overnight, but I forgot turkeys are in the freezer section, so I spent the night defrosting. I ended up just giving the bird a light butter rub down and seasoned with Johnny's seasoning salt. Threw it on the UDS at about 1pm at 275* for the first few hours and cranked it to 300* for the last hour whole, I prefer not to spatchcock since I like to display the bird in a traditional manor for Thanksgiving. I then put it in a baking pan and wrapped with aluminum foil and rested in my oven for about an hour.

It was a good bird. Moist and tender.

My only suggestion to you is to make sure you don't use too many wood chunks for smoke. Poultry sucks in smoke pretty easily.

Enjoy.
 
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