Sorry this is sorda long but here goes…
Being very new to this smoking thing, I did as much research as I could on smoking a turkey before yesterday. What I found was a dizzying array of different options and a wide variety of instructions as far as “doâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s†and “donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t doâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s†are concerned. Well, I am excited to say I have come through to the other side and have received really good reviews after smoking my first Turkey. I will admit I really took a chance by doing my very first bird for our office Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. I have always deep fried our turkeys and can do that blindfolded (I donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t recommend actually doing that though
).
I wanted to put my experiences down for the other newbies on this site to review. Those who have been doing this a while will find some things that you donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t agree with but I have always been able to glean from others experiences.
First let me say, while there are some general directives you will want to follow, you have a great deal of latitude in options beyond those. My original plan was to find a fresh bird (not previously injected with solution) to brine, inject and smoke. Everything I read says not to brine a previously inject bird. Instead, I could not find a fresh bird so I bought a 12 ¼ lb butterball that had been previously injected with a 7% solution. I brined the bird for approximately 10 hours in the recipe DeeJayDebi has on her website minus the onion power (I did not have any) plus McCormicks Turkey Rub. Here is her recipe:
1 gallon water
1/3 cup salt ( sea or kosher)
3/4 teaspoon Garlic Power
3/4 teaspoon Onion Powder
3/4 teaspoon Cajun Spice
Due to time constraints, I did not have time to inject the bird with anything. I figured the next one will be injected for comparison. I rubbed the bird down with McCormicks Turkey Rub wrapped it in plastic wrap, stuck it in the cooler and out the door I went. I was setup at the office and put the bird in at 7:00 am. I put it in the middle rack of my vertical propane water smoker with the breast toward the back and breast up. I wanted to be able to eat the skin; we like it crispy so I set the smoker on high (loaded, it will reach 325º to 330º no higher). I sprayed apple juice every 45 minutes to an hour after it reached and internal temperature of 90º. I must say I was a little concerned about the smoke as it initially was billowing out of the smoker at those high temperatures. Eventually, I did start getting the thin blue smoke talked about on here. The bird reached 170º at 10:30 (3½ hours later). I took it off the smoker wrapped it in aluminum foil and a towel and stuck it back in the cooler. We planned on carving at 11:15. At 11:15 I took the bird out and began carving.
I was very happy to see the juices coming from the meat. The hickory permeated the entire bird and the taste was very good. The dark meat was most excellent. It was tender, moist, and succulent. The white meat was only somewhat moist so I will be very interested to see if the one I inject next week will offer up a more moist white meat. I suspect it will. The skin was still not as good as I had hoped and had to discard it but I suppose I be happy to sacrifice the skin for a good smoke flavored meat.
For Thanksgiving I plan on smoking a butt and a bird together. That means the turkey will be smoked at a temperature of 250º. My plan is to inject it and once it reaches 140º remove it and place it in the oven in an attempt to make the skin eatable. Iâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]m not sure the 140º temp is the right time to remove it and put it in the oven so some of you experts can chime in on that.
Let me say thanks to all of you for your input as it was truly helpful in making this smoke a success.
gadawgr1
Being very new to this smoking thing, I did as much research as I could on smoking a turkey before yesterday. What I found was a dizzying array of different options and a wide variety of instructions as far as “doâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s†and “donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t doâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s†are concerned. Well, I am excited to say I have come through to the other side and have received really good reviews after smoking my first Turkey. I will admit I really took a chance by doing my very first bird for our office Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. I have always deep fried our turkeys and can do that blindfolded (I donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t recommend actually doing that though
I wanted to put my experiences down for the other newbies on this site to review. Those who have been doing this a while will find some things that you donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t agree with but I have always been able to glean from others experiences.
First let me say, while there are some general directives you will want to follow, you have a great deal of latitude in options beyond those. My original plan was to find a fresh bird (not previously injected with solution) to brine, inject and smoke. Everything I read says not to brine a previously inject bird. Instead, I could not find a fresh bird so I bought a 12 ¼ lb butterball that had been previously injected with a 7% solution. I brined the bird for approximately 10 hours in the recipe DeeJayDebi has on her website minus the onion power (I did not have any) plus McCormicks Turkey Rub. Here is her recipe:
1 gallon water
1/3 cup salt ( sea or kosher)
3/4 teaspoon Garlic Power
3/4 teaspoon Onion Powder
3/4 teaspoon Cajun Spice
Due to time constraints, I did not have time to inject the bird with anything. I figured the next one will be injected for comparison. I rubbed the bird down with McCormicks Turkey Rub wrapped it in plastic wrap, stuck it in the cooler and out the door I went. I was setup at the office and put the bird in at 7:00 am. I put it in the middle rack of my vertical propane water smoker with the breast toward the back and breast up. I wanted to be able to eat the skin; we like it crispy so I set the smoker on high (loaded, it will reach 325º to 330º no higher). I sprayed apple juice every 45 minutes to an hour after it reached and internal temperature of 90º. I must say I was a little concerned about the smoke as it initially was billowing out of the smoker at those high temperatures. Eventually, I did start getting the thin blue smoke talked about on here. The bird reached 170º at 10:30 (3½ hours later). I took it off the smoker wrapped it in aluminum foil and a towel and stuck it back in the cooler. We planned on carving at 11:15. At 11:15 I took the bird out and began carving.
I was very happy to see the juices coming from the meat. The hickory permeated the entire bird and the taste was very good. The dark meat was most excellent. It was tender, moist, and succulent. The white meat was only somewhat moist so I will be very interested to see if the one I inject next week will offer up a more moist white meat. I suspect it will. The skin was still not as good as I had hoped and had to discard it but I suppose I be happy to sacrifice the skin for a good smoke flavored meat.
For Thanksgiving I plan on smoking a butt and a bird together. That means the turkey will be smoked at a temperature of 250º. My plan is to inject it and once it reaches 140º remove it and place it in the oven in an attempt to make the skin eatable. Iâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]m not sure the 140º temp is the right time to remove it and put it in the oven so some of you experts can chime in on that.
Let me say thanks to all of you for your input as it was truly helpful in making this smoke a success.
gadawgr1
