Water Pan for Turkey

Patriot

Looking for opinions - cooking turkey, raised indirect in a roasting pan with v rack.  Is an additional drip pan with water above plate setter needed or not? Should liquid ( water, wine, etc be added to roasting pan)? This will be maiden voyage for turkey on the egg.

TexasBelliott

I always use a roasting pan with an inside rack to set the turkey on. The results have been terrific. Most important thing to do is brine the turkey. Here are a couple of links I have followed. Brine recipe is gold. The other recipe you'll have to work with since it's written for a charcoal grill.

http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/bacon-wrapped-smoked-turkey.aspx

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe.html

OhioEgger

Patriot said:

 Is an additional drip pan with water above plate setter needed or not? Should liquid ( water, wine, etc be added to roasting pan)? 

I don't know of any reason to add water to the roasting pan or use another water pan in a BGE. Ever.

bgebrent

No liquid in the drip pan.  I got lucky years ago with this approach, got lucky.  Raise your drip pan off of the plate setter or stone so there's an air gap.  The risk of the liquid is it boils off and you get a temp spike.  The reason it's unnecessary is that the egg maintains all the moisture you need.  Added moisture only suppresses temps and risks the spike.

Patriot

Thanks for advice.

fishlessman

if your adding wine or other liquid to make gravy make sure you have a space between the stone/platesetter and the roasting pan. heres the important part, wear gloves opening the egg with this setup, steam burns are insane with this setup. had blisters across the knuckles one tday, takes the fun out of the day