Crispy skin on TDay Smoked Turkey

[tallbm]

Smoke 325F+ smoker temp the entire time. Should get the job done and is the only consistent voodoo I've personally encountered to fight with poultry skin.
With that said I've never tried the baking powder thing. Never needed too after cranking the heat up.
I go from brine/cure, pat with paper towels and into the smoker :)

 

[djnordeen]

Just Lucky

 

[tallbm]

Just Lucky
View attachment 649075

Looks great! :D

 

[tbern]

Luck or not, those look awesome!! Nice job!!

 

[brucek90]

The succinct question: How are you getting crispy skin on a turkey when you're smoking it?

I have a 15lbs. turkey. I will be doing a wet brine, then applying olive oil to the skin and adding my seasoning. I've had a mixed bag of results for crispy skin on my beer can chickens, but what seems best is to smoke it for 1.5 hrs (keeping the temp 250-275F range), then crank the temperature up to the 375-400F range for the remainder of the cook until I get to ~160F internal temp, then pull it for the rest period. This past weekend, I experimented using chicken, but following my turkey plan (minus the brine and laying it on the grates as the turkey will be) and it seemed like the skin wasn't as crispy as I had hoped.

I guess the bottom-line question is how are you guys achieving crispy skin on your TDay birds, or is that just a pipedream?

Thanks in advance!

I dry brine my turkey, leaving in the fridge uncovered for 2-3 days. it really dries the skin out. I put the dry brine under the skin and on top of the skin. I add about 1 tsp of baking powder to further dry the skin. Turkeys don't have much fat to render so I recommend a 300+ temp. I also spatchcock the turkey so it cooks faster, less chance of drying out.