Thanksgiving question....need confirmation of my plan:)

[burm1000]

I'm cooking two 8lb bone in turkey breasts and one pre-cooked spiral ham. I'm debating cooking the turkey breasts a day early but would prefer to do it all on Turkey Day if I can. We host it at our house so no travel required. We like to eat a big lunch around 1:00 then sit around and play cards, watch football, and enjoy a drink or two until we can force ourselves to some leftovers later in the evening. We will have a total of 12 people (my immediate family, 9 adults 2 high school age and 1 jr. high age kids.

My preference would be to put the two breasts on around 7 am and plan for them to be done around 11, then wrap and cooler them to keep warm. I'd add the ham around 9:30 to be done around 12:30. I cook on an 18" WSM. I'll do the turkey on the bottom rack and put the ham in a pan on the top rack to control. I'll shoot for a 240 temp. I'm OK with the skin not being to crisp. I'll be using the two recipes below.

https://www.smoking-meat.com/november-13-2014-smoked-maple-barbecue-turkey

https://www.smoking-meat.com/march-24-2016-double-smoked-spiral-sliced-ham

I'll use a mix of apple and hickory wood to support both recipes. Any flaws, advice, corrections, or words of affirmation??

Thanks.

 

[gmc2003]

Your probably looking at about 5.5 hrs give or take for both the turkey and the ham. With that being the case I would put the turkey over the ham so you can keep a better eye on how it's cooking. My WSM(22")s lower grate runs around 10* or so cooler then my top one.

Chris

 

[noboundaries]

If you've never smoked/cooked like you mentioned above, do a practice run with, say, one turkey breast to check the timing and see how it turns out. Unless you are an experienced cook, doing something for the first time for a group of people generates max stress.