Water pan or no water pan for turkey?

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whitegardens

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Dec 7, 2015
82
54
Need some advice.

Doing a 22 lb turkey tomorrow that was fresh from local farm.

Brined for 48 hours.

Going into the smoking process, do you suggest using or not using water pans to increase humidity?

I've been researching and haven't gotten a definitive answer. I'm thinking at minimum to leave water trays out for the first six hours, or until the skin is golden.

Apreciate the thoughts in advance!

Thanks!
 
Man that is one fine looking build!
Looks like you thought of everything!
Most guys don’t use a water pan when they are smoking poultry. In 2 of my smokers I use lava rocks in the water pan. In my Lang I put a water pan next to the firebox to even out the temps across the grate & I still get crispy skin at 350 degrees.
Al
 
Man that is one fine looking build!
Looks like you thought of everything!
Most guys don’t use a water pan when they are smoking poultry. In 2 of my smokers I use lava rocks in the water pan. In my Lang I put a water pan next to the firebox to even out the temps across the grate & I still get crispy skin at 350 degrees.
Al

Thanks! Great input!

I started this morning at 7am cst. No water pan and kept all my ceramic briquettes in the diffuser plate.

In one of my previous runs with the water pans, I noticed almost excessive humidity. So I decided to stay away...

If I do anything, I'll just splash a bit of water in the cavity when I open for a check.

I'll have a full rundown in my build thread when done and do a complete log entry from start to finish. Wanted to show specific runs in that build for record keeping purposes, and so people see the results and compare if they do something similar.

In the meantime.....

20211127_055255.jpg
20211127_070018.jpg
 
Hour number 6 and at 163*

Cooked quicker than expected... But, I might of been running closer to 300*...my pid temp probe might be bad.

This is OK in the end as I got real close toy140* internal temp before 4 hours.

Going to jack it up to 350 for a quick, final roast on the skin.
20211127_111853.jpg


Plenty of moisture just from the bird. Pic is from opening right after hitting 140*
 
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