- Dec 3, 2012
- 84
- 83
A couple of geese and a couple of turkey legs in brine. I put the ice in a zip lock just so it weights the birds down and doesn't dilute the brine as it melts. It was below freezing so the coolers worked as insulators.
3 nice whitefish into the brine
New Years Eve ended with a bang. 2 geese, 2 turkeys and a pile of fish found their way to my wash basin. I decided instead of freezing everything I might as well smoke the whole lot up for the weekend crowd. So I plucked the geese, skinned the turkeys, filleted the fish, and kept 3 whitefish whole for smoking.
Started with a 4:1 brine for the fish and added some molasses to up the color a little.
I put the geese and turkey legs in an apple juice, orange juice, soy brine with some salt, brown sugar and cure. I'm not a big skin fan, but figure I'll baste it after 3 hours in case it needs some color.
I put the fish in a cooler and the birds in a drink cooler and covered with ice and let soak for 48 hours. They've been air drying for an hour and are headed for the smoker soon. I figure I'll run it at 120 for an hour then up it to 225 degrees with a heavy smoke at the first hour and pull the geese at 140, fish at 150 and turkey at 165. Based on thickness my guess is everything should come out about the same time, but I'll have a thermometer to make sure?
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Anyone have any experience with mixed meats? My biggest concern is I don't want to cook the geese too fast, I like about 4 hours on the whitefish, and don't want to dry out the turkey legs.
