Practice Turkey

[PatioSmoker]

I've done a few turkeys on a rotisserie. Now that I've gotten into smoking it's time to smoke a bird before the Holiday arrives. So the pic will be the starter project. I just took it out of the freezer so it will need to thaw for a few days which will give me time to work up a brine recipe that I will try. In the end I'll be killing more than 2 birds with one bird :-)

I plan to let it thaw for 3 days or so then add it to a brine and be ready for smoking this next Saturday. The wood choice will be pecan and the rest of the details will be posted as I progress. Being a newbie on the board I'm hoping the pic posting will go smoothly so bare with me if problems occur.

Mark

 

[mneeley490]

Pecan is a bit of a heavy smoke flavor for poultry, for me. If you like that kind of flavor profile, that's certainly up to you. I'm sure many people use it.
But unless you have experience with how much smoke you like, I'd start out with a lighter smoke, like apple, alder, pear, sugar maple, or even orange.

 

[SmokinAl]

I go the other way, I use hickory on poultry.
Al

 

[PatioSmoker]

Ok so I got the turkey done and it tastes pretty good. I think that the flavor of what I brined with did not show up much at all after the turkey was smoked.

The brine was;
1 cup Kosher salt
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup crushed red pepper
2 Tbs of rosemary, thyme, marjoram
1 tsp tarragon

I added all the ingredients to a sauce pan and heated them up to help dissolve them with as much water as would fit except for molasses and syrup. This was left to simmer for about 10 minutes. I was hoping to get the ingredients to shed some of their flavor into a liquid. Then I poured this into a bowl and then added the molasses and syrup. I feel this process keeps the sugars from burning. Finally I added ice water to the bowl to cool every thing down after the sugars dissolved. This bowl is big enough to hold my 11 pound bird and cover it all of which fit in the refrigerator. The breast was in the bowl and closet to the bottom of the bowl. The turkey was in brine for 19 hours. The packaging said that the turkey contains 9.5 percent enhancements such as turkey broth and a few other things. I don't believe this helped to take on my brine. I also merely used this bird because I had it.

So for smoking I still used my pecan wood with my electric smoker. It went like this:

I fired up the smoker to warm it to 120 degrees
Put turkey in at 12:30pm set smoker to 180 degrees F outside air temp is about 34 degrees.
1:30 added more chips
2:30 IT=111 degrees
3:30 IT=125 degrees added chips and turned smoker to 190 degrees
4:00 IT= 130 degrees turned smoker to 200 degrees, basted turkey with maple syrup, brown sugar and water mixture
4:30 basted again
4:45 turned smoker up to 220 degrees
6:30 set to 225 degrees
8:49 pm pulled the turkey with IT of 160 degrees and cover well to rest for 45 minutes.

The turkey did cook completely through. The probe was deep in the thigh.

 

[PatioSmoker]

Here are a couple of shots of the bird.

 

[tallbm]

Awesome! If I had Pecan I would be using it as well on mine coming up. There is a chance I might have some though :D
If not I'm going Pit Boss Competition Blend with a little extra Hickory added and I'm doing 2 rows with my AMNPS on it since it will likely cook in under 4 hours in my smoker.

Turkeys are on sale and I'll be defrosting one soon :D