Rub/glaze on turkey?

[turick]

Hi all. First time smoking a whole turkey. In the past I've tried smoking just a turkey breast with poor results (didn't take on hardly any smoke flavor) so I'm just crossing my fingers today.

I have a 10 pounder, brined it with 1 cup salt/gallon for 16 hours, and now I'm trying to figure out what to put in/on the turkey.

One idea is to baste it in a whiskey, apple juice, honey, cinnamon and cloves concoction, and stuff it with onion, celery, apple, lemon, and lime. I was also thinking about rubbing it with SPOG + sage and rosemary, but I'm not sure if there is any point in rubbing it if I'm going to be basting it every half hour. Will the baste just wash off the rub? Should I choose one vs the other?

 

[kruizer]

Well, here is my take on the question of glaze. If you want to put a rub on the bird and glaze, just use your basting brush and load it up with the glaze and shake it over the bird instead brushing it on. The glaze should fall off the brush on on to the bird. Your seasoning plan sounds good to me.

 

[uncle eddie]

If you baste/glaze it, I doubt you get much smoke flavor. And if you season it, there is not much time for the seasoning to "soak in" - but I would season it and let the smoke do its magic. SPG works just fine.

Next time you brine it, you might want to try adding 1 tablespoon each of rosemary, thyme, and sage (or 3 TBSP of poultry seasoning) and the salt you normally use. I put that in a pot and bring it to a boil with about 2 quarts of water. Remove from heat, add ice. Once it is at room temp, pop the turkey in a big ziploc bag, pour the brine over the bird, refrigerate it for at least overnight. Rinse it well, SPG for seasoning...then pop it in the smoker.

That brine will season your turkey all throughout the bird.

 

[chef jimmyj]

You Brined. You will not need salt in the rub. Butter or Bacon Grease with herbs and spices, under and on the skin, is all you need. Basting will not affect the meat flavor and will just keep the skin from getting crisp...JJ

 

[turick]

Thanks everybody. I ended up creating a random rub inspired by some vindaloo I made a few weeks ago... pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, turmeric, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, paprika, cardamom, rosemary, and sage. I put some butter between the skin and breast (hope that isn't a mistake), then stuffed with celery, onion, apple, lemon, lime, and some fresh rosemary, sage, and bay leaves.