Smoked First Turkey...

[joseph73]

smoked the turkey today. it was phenomenal! Not perfect, but very good. I brined for 24 hours then spatchcocked it an let it rest for 2 hours while I injected it with a ghee(the ladies in the house are on a special diet and no butter, but ghee is pretty good!) stock and some maple syrup. I also added a garlic/herb rub. Used some cherry wood chips. Only reloaded once and it kept smoking...

I set the Masterbuilt electric to 275 degrees and it was done in 2.5 hours. I let it rest for another half an hour and checked the temp and the breast was at 165. The turkey itself was about 17lbs. Should it get done this soon? I was prepared for about 5-6 hours. The outside temp was around 45 today and the smoker stayed in the 250-255 range when I was checking on it.

 

[Mattyt7]

5-6 hours sounds closer to the time you’d expect cooking the bird intact. Spatchcocking signicantly reduces the cook time.

 

[indaswamp]

Ditto what Matty said... spatchcock will speed the process up significantly.

 

[6GRILLZNTN]

Pics or it didn't happen!

 

[joseph73]

Pics or it didn't happen!

funny thing about that...
I had planned on doing that, but two things thwarted my plans. First, I wasn't certain that the bird was actually done when I pulled it on account of it cooking so fast, which caused me to go into a different gear and figure out if my bird was okay.
second, I forgot to pin the skin down with a toothpick where I loosed it to apply a rub. This resulted in the breasts being fully exposed as the skin was off to the side. Although the breasts received more exposure that way, the meat was still very juicy! I will, however, endeavor to capture the 2nd bird....on Thanksgiving!

 

[chopsaw]

This resulted in the breasts being fully exposed