Recommendations for smoking the holiday bird

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Descartian

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Hello Gents,

I’m lucky enough to have a gas infrared broiler and rotisserie in my oven. In cooking my turkeys I usually start at 500 degrees to crisp/brown the skin up a bit then drop the temperature to 350 to finish the bird.

I want to smoke a turkey this year. Aside from an awesome looking and tasting bird my 2 main goals are crispy skin and smoke flavor.

What do you guys recommend on temps and times to get the desired results? And should I go traditional or spatchcock? Will I have enough time to get sufficient smoke flavor with the spatchcock method?
 
I do the half-cocked method, injected instead of a cover brine, then smoked for a couple of hours with a finish somewheres north of 350° for crispy skin. I pull the breast at 160°, but take the dark half to 175°.

8E9925Y.jpg
 
Haven't done one in the FEC in quite a while, but I'd start low at 180 for an hour or two for some extra smoke time, then crank up the heat to 375 to finish cooking and crisp up the skin.
 
LYU370 said:
Haven't done one in the FEC in quite a while, but I'd start low at 180 for an hour or two for some extra smoke time, then crank up the heat to 375 to finish cooking and crisp up the skin.
Click to expand...

Would you use any additional smoke from a tube or something similar?
 
Descartian said:
Would you use any additional smoke from a tube or something similar?
Click to expand...
I never did, just run at low temp to give it extra smoke time for a few hours. You could probably run it at an even lower temp, 140-160 for more smoke time.

Set your smoking temp, set your cooking time for 2-3 hours, then set the hold temp to 375-380. Don't have to remember to crank up the temp. Not sure what vintage FEC you have, this will work with the IQ4, I think the new IQ5 controller has even more options.
 
LYU370 said:
I never did, just run at low temp to give it extra smoke time for a few hours. You could probably run it at an even lower temp, 140-160 for more smoke time.

Set your smoking temp, set your cooking time for 2-3 hours, then set the hold temp to 375-380. Don't have to remember to crank up the temp. Not sure what vintage FEC you have, this will work with the IQ4, I think the new IQ5 controller has even more options.
Click to expand...

My FC is only 6 months old so I’ll have the most recent controller.
 
I always used the Alton Brown method in the oven (very similar to what you described). The best turkey I ever cooked was spatchcocked over charcoal with pecan chunks. I ran it around 275 until I hit 140 in the breast. Crank it up to finish and get the skin crispy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I never had any issues with smoke on a bird as they take it on easily but, never did one on the pellet grill. Always stuck with cherry too.
 
So I dry brined the bird for 36 hours. Started the smoke at 225 a d when the internal temp reached 140 degrees I jacked it up to 400 for the last hour (probably 30 mint total with heat up time). Pulled it when internal temps reached 157.

It rested in my cambro for 1.5 hours as it made a road trip to family. Turned our delicious and moist.

Total cook time was about 4 hours for the 19lb bird.
 
Looks pretty good from here. Glad it turned out to your liking.
 
Last edited:
I like Thirdeye's half-cocked method, but I'd take the breast off at 155F max to allow for carryover cooking, and let the dark part run up to somewhere north of 180F to render it a bit more. A turkey is really 2 entirely different types of meat in one package. Same with chicken of course.
 
I can’t find anything on the half-cocked method. Do you have a link?


thirdeye said:
I do the half-cocked method, injected instead of a cover brine, then smoked for a couple of hours with a finish somewheres north of 350° for crispy skin. I pull the breast at 160°, but take the dark half to 175°.

8E9925Y.jpg
Click to expand...

I can’t find anything on the half-cocked method. Do you have a link?
 
I will say that I was impressed with both birds. For the second cook it was for my employees that had to work. One of my guys brought up a deep fried turkey so we were going head to head for the best turkey. My smoked turkey overwhelmingly took the win.

I was a bit worried about the bird drying out in the smoker but with the dry brining I couldn’t have been more wrong. When I went to temp probe the breast, it gushed juices when I pulled the probe out and I mean gushed.

I think this is going to be my new holiday tradition.
 
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