I did these a couple years ago for Christmas and people just loved them. Any that were left after dinner were quickly snapped up in doggie bags as people left. Decided I would do a case to pass out to friends and family for Thanksgiving this year. The salty sweetness of these is a nice change from the standard turkey they will all have. Starting the thread now and will update once I smoke them. I’m generally using Pops (RIP) brine. I did kick up the cure #1 a bit for the shorter brine time. For 4 gallons I used 4 gallons water, 4 1/2 cups sea salt, 4 cups Splenda, 4 cups Brown Swerve, 6T cure #1. I did end up making another 2 gallons to get good coverage
Last week a friend turned me on to a nice little town shop that has great case pricing on meats. I ordered a 30 lbs case of turkey legs @ $1.69 a lbs which I think is very good this time of year. I fully expected them to be the smaller hen legs that usually average 1 lbs. When getting them out to thaw was pleasantly surprised to find they were huge tom turkey legs.
After reading a hosts of posts and articles on tendon removal I decided to just cut through the skin around the joint. I considered cutting off the end joint but from an aesthetics standpoint decided not to. Hoping the skin shrinks back and I can pull out easily when they hit my target temp around 170-175F.
Due to the large 2+ lbs size I decided to inject with the brine to insure cure made it all the way to the bone. Got out the Spitjack for this operation. It’s one of the best splurges I’ve made on a cooking tool. Makes injecting tons of meat so easy. Pumped each up with two full loads of brine
My buddy recently got a source for loads of food safe 5 gallon pickle and pepper buckets.He gave me a few for this project. Going to be great for bacon too.
Into the buckets they go. 8 in this bucket and 7 in the other.
Covered with brine and into the refrigerator. I plan on brining 48 hours.
I’ll pull them tomorrow around 4PM. Current thought is I’ll dry them really well, dust with baking powder and leave in frig on baking racks uncovered for 24 hours to dry that skin out. Tuesday I will hit with rub and smoke Wednesday I’m the Lang with cherry wood. My buddies under the weather so May end up throwing in their turkey, ham and a butt as well. I will update this as the process unfolds. I did have about 2/3 gallon brine left and not wanting to waste I grabbed a 3 lbs package of boneless pork sirloin chops to cure for a day.These should be tasty breakfast treats.
Out of the brine, hand dried individually , dusted with 3:1 mix of sea salt to baking powder and overnight in the garage frig to dry uncovered.
This morning sprayed with olive oil and rubbed with a rub from my friends company. This stuff is off the hook for poultry. Packed with honey granules, chipotle and savory herbs.
Lighting up the Lang with some cherry wood. Running an average 275F.
Here they are starting to make that delicious sound. Here we go all finished up. I did run 300F the last hour.
Here is the reason I only do these once a year lol. I got most of them Thats a big drumstick in pic for scale
Some wrapped up for distribution to friends and family.
Deboned a couple of the ones that were messy after removing tendons for us to munch.
I smoked a sweet chipotle au jus under the meat for dipping later. Was just chicken broth , chile morita paste and some brown Splenda. I’ll defat that in the morning. Thanks for looking!
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