Smoking my 1st turkey

[SecondHandSmoker]

Looking good. I am sure the turkey will turn out great. You should remove the plastic pop up thermometer since you don't need it.

 

[Preacher Man]

I'm interested to see the comparison in temps between the plastic pop-out thing and your actual meat probe.

 

[PAS]

At Thanksgiving,I compared the plastic pop up to a digital temp probe and there was a 20 degree difference. Bird in oven plastic popped at 180 degree and dry as heck!! Butterball brand doesnt use a pop up for that very reason!

 

[SecondHandSmoker]

At Thanksgiving,I compared the plastic pop up to a digital temp probe and there was a 20 degree difference. Bird in oven plastic popped at 180 degree and dry as heck!! Butterball brand doesnt use a pop up for that very reason!

Indeed. Those plastic pop ups are notorious for being junk.

 

[pi guy]

2.5 hours and it's at 123 degrees. Seems a bit fast?? I dropped the temp to 240. Is this too high?

 

[OldFartFarmer]

im watching this, im doing one in my smoker in a few weeks,

 

[pi guy]

Annnnnd, just like that the smoker quits on me. 140 degrees IT. Says it's heating but the temp plummeted. It did this to me a couple months ago, and I fixed the connections to the heating element that had corroded. Worked fine for a few smokes, including yesterday's salmon and all day since 9:30 this morning. UGH!

 

[banderson7474]

I prefer to cook poultry at higher temps like 275-300 range. It comes out rubbery to me if cooked at lower temps or at least that's what I experienced.

Also, did you decide not to brine it? If you didn't, I would definitely test out poultry brined vs not brined and I think you would be pleasantly surprised. I don't know many that prefer unbrined when it comes to that.

 

[tallbm]

Well that sucks about the smoker dying on you. It sounds to me like a connector issue since heat is not getting to the element even though the light says it is trying.

Your 15 pound bird seems to have been cooking about as fast as it should. Just an FYI, your poultry skin will likely be tough and leathery cooked at temps below 300F. Unless your smoker runs hot (not very common with MES) then you should keep this in mind. One solution is to pull the birds at like 140F and finish them in a hot oven (325F or higher) to get the skin to behave.

I have rigged the crap out of my MES40 and I run my birds at 325F since it is such a fast and short smoke. Also I use the A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker tray (AMNPS) and with those bird smokes happening around 4 hours I rock double smoke of basically any type of wood pellet out there. The AMNPS puts out perfect smoke so even burning 2 rows of 100% mesquite pellets I have yet to over smoke one.

If you don't have an AMNPS you are missing out :)

I hope all this info helps :)

 

[pi guy]

I prefer to cook poultry at higher temps like 275-300 range. It comes out rubbery to me if cooked at lower temps or at least that's what I experienced.

Also, did you decide not to brine it? If you didn't, I would definitely test out poultry brined vs not brined and I think you would be pleasantly surprised. I don't know many that prefer unbrined when it comes to that.

Thanks for the info, next time I will go at a higher temp!

 

[pi guy]

Well that sucks about the smoker dying on you. It sounds to me like a connector issue since heat is not getting to the element even though the light says it is trying.

Your 15 pound bird seems to have been cooking about as fast as it should. Just an FYI, your poultry skin will likely be tough and leathery cooked at temps below 300F. Unless your smoker runs hot (not very common with MES) then you should keep this in mind. One solution is to pull the birds at like 140F and finish them in a hot oven (325F or higher) to get the skin to behave.

I have rigged the crap out of my MES40 and I run my birds at 325F since it is such a fast and short smoke. Also I use the A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker tray (AMNPS) and with those bird smokes happening around 4 hours I rock double smoke of basically any type of wood pellet out there. The AMNPS puts out perfect smoke so even burning 2 rows of 100% mesquite pellets I have yet to over smoke one.

If you don't have an AMNPS you are missing out :)

I hope all this info helps :)

This is great info, thank you for sharing!

I had to finish it in an electric roaster inside. House smells great. Now I don't know what to do, the temp got WAY to high. My electric thermo said 200 IT! What a drag! It looks horrible, I'll see how it tastes.

 

[SecondHandSmoker]

This is great info, thank you for sharing!

I had to finish it in an electric roaster inside. House smells great. Now I don't know what to do, the temp got WAY to high. My electric thermo said 200 IT! What a drag! It looks horrible, I'll see how it tastes.

I am sorry to hear that your smoke did not go as planned since the smoker conked out. Hopefully you'll get that sorted out.

Anyway, I would have put the bird in the regular oven at 325 degrees to finish opposed to the roaster but that is just me.

The meat should still be good and probably is not too dried out.

 

[AP514]

I am going the same route in the next few days..guess it is time to look up brine'n....

sorry to hear about your Mes die'n.....

 

[tallbm]

This is great info, thank you for sharing!

I had to finish it in an electric roaster inside. House smells great. Now I don't know what to do, the temp got WAY to high. My electric thermo said 200 IT! What a drag! It looks horrible, I'll see how it tastes.

That sucks about the 200F IT. Worse case you just debone it and you can always make soup out of it. If the meat isn't too overcooked you can mix in some bbq sauce and seasoning (if needed) into the deboned meat for shredded bbq chicken sandwiches. Finally you can make stuff like chicken spaghetti casserole and other dishes. You'll find a way to use it up and if youve never had smoked turkey/chicken meat in a soup you will be shocked at how amazing the soup is. My favorite is smoked chicken/turkey and dumpling soup :)

 

[pi guy]

Thanks for the words of encouragement everyone. So I refrigerated the meat after pulling it apart. Most of the dark meat was GREAT! The breast was a *little* (LOL) dry, but I made some great sandwiches last night and it was fine. Served on some really nice bakery buns with mayo and cranberry relish and leftover bacon from the weekend. Wife made up some quick green bean casserole, and a baked potato soup. All in all was great! We boiled up the carcass with herbs, carrots, onions and celery and strained for stock. Have a bunch of stock now, so smoked turkey soup tomorrow to use up the last of the meat and stock. If anyone has suggestions on anything to add to the soup I'm all ears.

Now to get this damn smoker on the mend. Wife offered to buy me a new one for Christmas, but I'd rather spend our money on the kids and family. Hopefully I can fix it (yet again).

 

[SecondHandSmoker]

Thanks for the words of encouragement everyone. So I refrigerated the meat after pulling it apart. Most of the dark meat was GREAT! The breast was a *little* (LOL) dry, but I made some great sandwiches last night and it was fine. Served on some really nice bakery buns with mayo and cranberry relish and leftover bacon from the weekend. Wife made up some quick green bean casserole, and a baked potato soup. All in all was great! We boiled up the carcass with herbs, carrots, onions and celery and strained for stock. Have a bunch of stock now, so smoked turkey soup tomorrow to use up the last of the meat and stock. If anyone has suggestions on anything to add to the soup I'm all ears.

Now to get this damn smoker on the mend. Wife offered to buy me a new one for Christmas, but I'd rather spend our money on the kids and family. Hopefully I can fix it (yet again).

A+ for using the turkey carcass for stock. My wife uses the carcass to make turkey frame soup which is a misnomer since the soup has no turkey bones it. LOL. She adds egg noodles, carrots, celery, onion, canned diced tomotoes and turkey meat. You could probably add potatoes or anything else you want. We used our leftover turkey breast from Thanksgiving in a delicious turkey and broccoli casserole. You could even make turkey tetrazzini with the leftovers.

Taking up your wife's offer to buy you a new smoker for Christmas has my vote.

 

[fivetricks]

We used most everything we had left over from our Thanksgiving veggie trays in our turkey soup. Was darn good. The broccoli really went well in the soup by the by..

I'm thinking I'm going to be adding it to my future chicken soup!

 

[SecondHandSmoker]

We used most everything we had left over from our Thanksgiving veggie trays in our turkey soup. Was darn good. The broccoli really went well in the soup by the by..

I'm thinking I'm going to be adding it to my future chicken soup!

Broccoli doesn't stick around very long at my house. The wife and I use it raw in salads, toss it stir frys, steam it in the Instant pot for 2 minutes, or just eat it raw dipped in some ranch dressing. It never occurred to me to use it soup. Thanks!

 

[fivetricks]

I couldn't have enjoyed it more :-)

 

[SecondHandSmoker]

I couldn't have enjoyed it more :)

Next time we make soup, we will definetly try it.