Familiar with smoker, not with Turkey

[Soldiermedic]

Greetings all,

I have a 30" Masterbuilt electric smoker and was designated to smoke a turkey for this year's thanksgiving meal to accompany the fried turkey someone else is doing. I have seen many different posts with different suggestions, temps, and times for the cook but my smoker maxes out at 275.

The turkey I have is 9.3 lbs from Butterball and has. I have contemplated spatchcocking the bird to make cooking easier and I have done that with many chickens in the past. Doing this will greatly speed the cooking of the turkey. Having said that, wouldn't a speedy cook greatly reduce the smoke flavor on the bird?

To brine or not. Butterball already brines their turkeys and I don't want it to be too salty, but I am prepared to brine if needed. I usually smoke chicken thighs at 250 to 275 for 3 hours in this smoker to get a good amount of smoke flavor. I usually have the chicken in a roasting pan though with probably keeps a good bit of smoke off of it. I planned on putting the turkey in the upper 3rd and a cool pan 2 racks below it to catch the drips if cooking in the pan is illadvised.

We are eating at 3 PM. I figure the bird needs to be done by 220 to allow rest and carving. Any thoughts or advice you all can give would be very helpful since I'm in unfamiliar territory.

 

[chef jimmyj]

Greetings all,

I have a 30" Masterbuilt electric smoker and was designated to smoke a turkey for this year's thanksgiving meal to accompany the fried turkey someone else is doing. I have seen many different posts with different suggestions, temps, and times for the cook but my smoker maxes out at 275. Expand to see answers.

The turkey I have is 9.3 lbs from Butterball and has. I have contemplated spatchcocking the bird to make cooking easier and I have done that with many chickens in the past. Doing this will greatly speed the cooking of the turkey. Having said that, wouldn't a speedy cook greatly reduce the smoke flavor on the bird? Yes but not that big a deal with a mild flavored Turkey.

To brine or not. Butterball already brines their turkeys and I don't want it to be too salty, but I am prepared to brine if needed. I usually smoke chicken thighs at 250 to 275 for 3 hours in this smoker to get a good amount of smoke flavor. I usually have the chicken in a roasting pan though with probably keeps a good bit of smoke off of it. I planned on putting the turkey in the upper 3rd and a cool pan 2 racks below it to catch the drips if cooking in the pan is illadvised. No need to Brine a BB but you can if you wish to change the amount of salt or get a specific flavor then injection is faster. You will get more even color and more smoke having the bird on a rack rather then in a pan.

We are eating at 3 PM. I figure the bird needs to be done by 220 to allow rest and carving. Any thoughts or advice you all can give would be very helpful since I'm in unfamiliar territory.
Electric smokers usually only go to 275°F. With these you will be smoking at the most common temp range of 225-275°F. You can figure on about 25 minutes per pound cook time, for a whole bird, + or - 5 minutes depending what part of the range you choose. For your small Spatchy, 15 minutes per should be close at 250. Usually the skin will not crisp so if the skin is not Crisp enough when the IT is 145*F in the Breast, put the Bird in a 425*F Oven to finish cooking to 165* and Crisp the Skin...JJ