Hey everyone
I smoked my first turkey today for a get together that I had with my friends and though my friends said that it was good and juicy, I was not satisfied! Well, I was mainly not satisfied because the skin looked like it was burnt. But I was following the internal temp the whole time and right when it got to around 160-165 I took it out and foiled it. But what ended up happening with the whole smoking of the turkey was that I started it in the smoker and I left it in there for roughly 4 1/2 hours and I realized that I couldn't keep the temp high enough in there and that at this rate, it wouldn't finish on time, so I finished it in the oven. When I took it out of the smoker it was a bit black but it wasn't that bad. But after I put it in the oven for 45 min, it turned a lot more black and a part of the skin on the breast peeled back as well. So I guess here are the questions
1) Should it usually be pretty difficult to keep the smoker temp up in a charcoal smoker when cooking a turkey?
(at one point i poured maybe 15 lit charcoal into the charcoal pan and the temp barely went up by 10 degrees, is that normal??)
2) If the turkey starts browning too early and the internal temp is still far from being done, should I foil it early so that it doesn't get too dark?
Thanks in advance for all your help!
I smoked my first turkey today for a get together that I had with my friends and though my friends said that it was good and juicy, I was not satisfied! Well, I was mainly not satisfied because the skin looked like it was burnt. But I was following the internal temp the whole time and right when it got to around 160-165 I took it out and foiled it. But what ended up happening with the whole smoking of the turkey was that I started it in the smoker and I left it in there for roughly 4 1/2 hours and I realized that I couldn't keep the temp high enough in there and that at this rate, it wouldn't finish on time, so I finished it in the oven. When I took it out of the smoker it was a bit black but it wasn't that bad. But after I put it in the oven for 45 min, it turned a lot more black and a part of the skin on the breast peeled back as well. So I guess here are the questions
1) Should it usually be pretty difficult to keep the smoker temp up in a charcoal smoker when cooking a turkey?
(at one point i poured maybe 15 lit charcoal into the charcoal pan and the temp barely went up by 10 degrees, is that normal??)
2) If the turkey starts browning too early and the internal temp is still far from being done, should I foil it early so that it doesn't get too dark?
Thanks in advance for all your help!