First attempt at a tom turkey on the BGE. Simple Instructions Included.

ChuckChampion

Hey guys, I know yall are probably sick of all the turkey and T-Day discussions, but I've been planning this and wanted to share.  

• 11 LB. bird
• Used a simple brine with it being my first time. 2 cups of water+ 1 TBS coarse sea salt+ 1 TBS brown sugar.  Didn't want to overpower the bird with too strong of a salty brine on my first try.
• Let the turkey rest in the brine and some ice in my yeti cooler for 25 hours
• Rinsed it very well and let it rest while I got the grill fired up.
• Once BGE was started I filled a gallon bag full of ice cubes and laid it across the breasts for 20 or so minutes.  It lowers the breast temps so they will be done at the same time as the rest of the bird instead of overcooking. This is a useful tip that I've heard a lot of guys mention on here, and its on Mad Max's turkey recipe.
• After I removed the bag of ice I moved on to the last step.   I rubbed butter all over the bird and got as much under the skin as I possibly could. 

 Grilling

     -I let the grill get up to temp and stay there for about thirty minutes before I put the bird on.  I used the placesetter legs up and placed a drip pan between the PS and cooking grid.  Also, make sure to use something as a spacer between your pan and PS.  The drip pan was sitting a little bit higher than legs on the PS so the grid sat on it.  I put the bird directly on the grid and cooked at 350 degrees.  Also, I basted twice during the approximately 2 and a half hour cook.  I didnt cook to time, I cooked to temp (breasts @ 160, thigh @ 180) so I'm not a hundred percent sure how long it took. 

Thanks for the taking the time to look and feel free to give me any tips or let me know what I did wrong!!  Sorry for the small pics, I will try to put better ones on once I get back from lunch.

 

 

ChuckChampion

here are some better pictures. 

SmokeyPitt

Beautiful looking bird...looks like you nailed it!  So how did it taste?  

ChuckChampion

It was fantastic.  Didn't expect it to be as tasty as a deep fried turkey or as juicy.  But it was better than any birds I've ever deep fried.