[h3]I know the title sounds a bit harsh and it wasn't all that bad, but here's my story.[/h3]
Every Year my wife does a great thanksgiving dinner.
This year was no different, she picked up a 19.5 lb fresh turkey and a 9 lb breast. I had received a Frozen 19.5 lb bird at work. When I got home to show off my prize, we decided to do one in the oven and one on the pit and save the breast for another day.
Now, I try to stay out of her way because this is her day and it's very important to her, fortunately the cooking time on my bird would be a few hours longer than hers, so I could get in and out of the kitchen before I became a nuisance.
Well here goes. I am not going to post the actual recipe because there are millions of slather recipes and quite frankly it's only a slather, I just use spices that compliment poultry. I don't use any ingredient with sugar for the slather as it will burn during the cook.
Started prepping the bird for a beer can style cook, I had a hell of a time adding the slather, even though I patted the bird dry it was a pain, I should have placed uncovered in the refrigerator for a few hours, but there was no time, guess I could have used a blow dryer.
So I get out my trusty thermapen and started probing the thermapen is showing 136º - 140º randomly oh shit, now I got this thing glazed and it has setup already, no going back.
Well it's too late now.
I finally gave up at 3:30 the temp only increased in the breast, the thigh stayed at 162º for over an hour. Although the cooking time was about right the breast was already at 175º, (Insert very bad word here).
When Laura was cutting the Pit Cooked bird, it hardly any juices come out, when the Oven Roasted bird was being carved there was liquid everywhere, oh boy this is a bad sign for the Pit Cooked bird.
Well here is a comparison from the guests. 1 being inedible 3 being OK, 5 being good, 7 being very good and 10 being outstanding
It's hard to separate this stuff in definable categories, for example texture can alter someones perception of actual flavor. And moisture and texture play well together.
Neither bird was brined, The Oven Roasted Bird was fresh and The Pit Cooked bird was a frozen bird. I think the Pit Cooked bird could have benefited from a brine.
Well in the end everything was fine many liked the smoked bird but it wasn't as nearly as moist as the Oven roasted Bird, but what blows my mind the most is, the Oven Roasted bird had better flavor throughout the meat as well and it was only slathered with butter, salt and pepper, it actually had a bit of welcomed salt flavor throughout the meat.
The pit cooked bird looked burnt, but believe it or not, it had no burnt flavor whatsoever and the drippings also had no signs of a burnt taste.
To this day when my mother cooks a turkey she goes by time, weight and temperature, just as her mother before her had done, they would simply cook based on time, weight and temp, brown the turkey the last hour, pull it out and check for doneness by piercing the thigh to see if the juices run clear. I think they add a half hour extra if stuffing the bird. I know this is harder to do in a pit or smoker where temps can fluctuate.
Another way is to move the leg away from the body of the turkey, if it moves easily and separates from the body, the turkey is done, if it snaps back it is undercooked.
I have never heard of anyone in either of our families getting sick from cooking by temp, weight and time.
Their turkey is always good if not great.
Just to make this clear, I am not suggesting to anyone to under cook their birds.
Doing big birds on a pit can be a challenge and If I went with my gut on this particular cook, the bird would have been near perfect, yeah I know many are saying hindsight is 20/20.
The internal temps were all over the place it was impossible to decide when to pull the bird based on temp probes, I would have been better of using the old school methods.
However, this has been a valuable lesson for me and my method for cooking larger birds will be a bit different next time. Most likely the next large bird will be done on the GOSM. I'll keep using the pit for smaller birds.
Thanks for tuning in.
Every Year my wife does a great thanksgiving dinner.
This year was no different, she picked up a 19.5 lb fresh turkey and a 9 lb breast. I had received a Frozen 19.5 lb bird at work. When I got home to show off my prize, we decided to do one in the oven and one on the pit and save the breast for another day.
Now, I try to stay out of her way because this is her day and it's very important to her, fortunately the cooking time on my bird would be a few hours longer than hers, so I could get in and out of the kitchen before I became a nuisance.
Well here goes. I am not going to post the actual recipe because there are millions of slather recipes and quite frankly it's only a slather, I just use spices that compliment poultry. I don't use any ingredient with sugar for the slather as it will burn during the cook.
- Mixed my slather ingredients and got my aromatics ready, then went down and fired up the pit using the preheat burner and log lighter and adding my first batch of junk wood to get a good coal base going. Its 8:30 and the outside temperature is 40º .
- There was onion added as well but not in the pic.
Started prepping the bird for a beer can style cook, I had a hell of a time adding the slather, even though I patted the bird dry it was a pain, I should have placed uncovered in the refrigerator for a few hours, but there was no time, guess I could have used a blow dryer.
- Placed the bird over top the can of aromatics and Slathered.
- Ugh! nasty!
- Headed back to the pit with my gnarly slathered bird.
- Pit temp was at 450º
- Removed the grate and placed the bird and pan on top of the reverse flow plate, I have a cast iron grate that sits on top of the reverse flow plate for cooking this way.
- 9:10 Closed the lid
- 9:20 rotated 90º
- 9:30 rotated 90º
- 9:40 rotated 90º. Had to turn off the preheat burner, could not get the temp below 500º, it would creep up from 450º to 500º in a few minutes. at this point the temp was down to 375º My initial plan was to have the bird at 450º for the first 30 minutes.
- Leveled drip pan and added water, if its not level, the drippings burn up on the low side. The reverse flow plate has a slight pitch for draining.
- 9:50 shut off log lighter and started decreasing temps trying to reach 275º. the bird was getting blasted so I placed a diffuser directly in the path of the heat, With these stickburners you really have to watch, if you are running at higher temps the food gets blasted, especially tall food like this turkey, you can see by some of the photos how the top of the bird got blasted.
- This is one weird looking bird.
- Foiled the top.
- Then I took a few moments to admire the beautiful morning. I try not to get too sucked in by the cook and stressing over it and I was starting to do just that. At that point you need to step back and refocus.
- 10:30 The outside temperature is now 47º and the smell of the wood and turkey are incredible. Inserted the probe (Maverick ET732) bird is reading 120º already, hmmm that's odd.
- 11:00 The pit is running at 260º and Internal temp is at 140º Wow, already?
- 11:30 internal temp is at 148º
- 12:05 bird is reading 158º figured I would make my glaze at this point and glaze the turkey the final hour of cooking.
- The bird is removed from the pan and the drippings and aromatics liquid from the can are poured off and the pan is moved to the grate level.
- Ok the bird is glazed.
- Aromatics are removed from the can and placed in the bird.
- 12:30 After glazing the bird I am thinking something just don't seem right. If I wasn't so focused on worrying about the Internal temp I would have realized that something is wrong.
So I get out my trusty thermapen and started probing the thermapen is showing 136º - 140º randomly oh shit, now I got this thing glazed and it has setup already, no going back.
Well it's too late now.
- 1:40 Internal temp at 158º - 165º. Now this is the part that really gets me angry and I WILL NEVER MAKE THIS MISTAKE AGAIN. I could not get the inner thigh up over 162º I probed the damn thing like a pincushion so I let it ride being driven by the fear of the FDA Guidelines.
- This is when my gut told me the bird should have been pulled.
I finally gave up at 3:30 the temp only increased in the breast, the thigh stayed at 162º for over an hour. Although the cooking time was about right the breast was already at 175º, (Insert very bad word here).
- Well how did it fare compared to mt wife's Oven Roasted Turkey? You decide by looking at the photos.
- This is too funny.
When Laura was cutting the Pit Cooked bird, it hardly any juices come out, when the Oven Roasted bird was being carved there was liquid everywhere, oh boy this is a bad sign for the Pit Cooked bird.
- Making the gravy.
- One saving grace was that my gravy was awesome.
Well here is a comparison from the guests. 1 being inedible 3 being OK, 5 being good, 7 being very good and 10 being outstanding
| Oven Roasted | Smoked | |
| Appearance | 9 | 3 |
| Moistness | 10 | 4 |
| Texture | 9 | 3 |
| Flavor | 9 | 9 |
| Gravy | N/A | 8 |
It's hard to separate this stuff in definable categories, for example texture can alter someones perception of actual flavor. And moisture and texture play well together.
Neither bird was brined, The Oven Roasted Bird was fresh and The Pit Cooked bird was a frozen bird. I think the Pit Cooked bird could have benefited from a brine.
Well in the end everything was fine many liked the smoked bird but it wasn't as nearly as moist as the Oven roasted Bird, but what blows my mind the most is, the Oven Roasted bird had better flavor throughout the meat as well and it was only slathered with butter, salt and pepper, it actually had a bit of welcomed salt flavor throughout the meat.
The pit cooked bird looked burnt, but believe it or not, it had no burnt flavor whatsoever and the drippings also had no signs of a burnt taste.
- Well here goes the plating.
- Happy Thanksgiving from My Family to yours.
- OK now for my rant.
To this day when my mother cooks a turkey she goes by time, weight and temperature, just as her mother before her had done, they would simply cook based on time, weight and temp, brown the turkey the last hour, pull it out and check for doneness by piercing the thigh to see if the juices run clear. I think they add a half hour extra if stuffing the bird. I know this is harder to do in a pit or smoker where temps can fluctuate.
Another way is to move the leg away from the body of the turkey, if it moves easily and separates from the body, the turkey is done, if it snaps back it is undercooked.
I have never heard of anyone in either of our families getting sick from cooking by temp, weight and time.
Their turkey is always good if not great.
Just to make this clear, I am not suggesting to anyone to under cook their birds.
Doing big birds on a pit can be a challenge and If I went with my gut on this particular cook, the bird would have been near perfect, yeah I know many are saying hindsight is 20/20.
The internal temps were all over the place it was impossible to decide when to pull the bird based on temp probes, I would have been better of using the old school methods.
However, this has been a valuable lesson for me and my method for cooking larger birds will be a bit different next time. Most likely the next large bird will be done on the GOSM. I'll keep using the pit for smaller birds.
Thanks for tuning in.
