Birthday Party Smoked Turkey (Q-View)

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bison

Fire Starter
Original poster
Jul 22, 2013
33
15
Minnesota
My son turned 7 so we had both sides of the family over today for a party and to watch some football.  My wife bought one of the biggest turkeys I have ever cooked, 19 lbs.  

I started with a brine of 1 gallon of water, 1 cup of Kosher salt, 1 T of pepper corns, 1 T of thyme.  I let the turkey brine for 24hrs.  After I took it out of the brine, I put it on a rack with a baking sheet under it.  I stuck it uncovered on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator for 2 days until the skin got nice and dry,


The rack the turkey is sitting on is the rack for my smoker.  As you can see, there is a slight problem.

I was worried about the size of the bird and staying clear of the 140 deg - 4 hr rule so I was going to spatchcock it anyway. But I needed to cut it in half in order for it to fit in my smoker.  I just added black pepper to both sides because the brine will impart all the salt and flavor that I'm looking for.


This big bird really didn't take as long as I thought it would.  It got to 165 deg in about 4 hrs.  I ran my smoker as hot as it would go and I could only muster 235 deg.  I use a Smoke Hollow electric.  It was probably about 45 - 50 deg outside in MN yesterday.  I also used my AMNPS filled with hickory pellets.


I ended up just shredding half of it and vac u packing the other half for a snowy MN winters day.  This ended up making enough for sandwiches for 11 people with a little left over for a sammy for me tomorrow for lunch!

 
Nice bird..... I bet the birthday boy was happy
 
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