Smoked turkey.... good or bad?

Biggreennessy

Hello! 
I would like peoples opinions on whether to smoke my thanksgiving turkey or not. Ive heard good things and not so good things. Can my fellow eggsperts weigh in on this please?

Trixie_Belle

I recently smoked a turkey breast.  It was amazing!   I used apple wood...lightly smoked.  

SmokingPiney

I've never argued about sitting down to a smoked turkey meal. It's delicious and it's an easy cook.

bo31210

Easy on the smoke and it will be fine.   I usually do mine around 300-325 until done and light smoke with peach or pecan.  Poultry absorbs smoke at lot quicker than beef or pork so you don't need a lot.    I also spatchcock my turkeys as it cooks more even that way for me.    Pick up one and cook it on the egg and see what you think.  It will produce one of the juiciest turkeys you have ever tasted.    Search the forum for several turkey recipes.

WeberWho

Most people don't know what turkey is supposed to taste like! If it's your first turkey on the egg you and your family are in for a treat! They will be happy with smoke or no smoke. Just need to be careful as poultry picks up smoke easily. Don't want to over power the turkey with smoke. Just go light with some fruitwood and you'll be fine. If it's extended family it might be too much. Some eggers family members find lump to be smokey. So it all depends on who your cooking for. They will be impressed either way! 

Acn

WeberWho? said:

Most people don't know what turkey is supposed to taste like! If it's your first turkey on the egg you and your family are in for a treat! They will be happy with smoke or no smoke. Just need to be careful as poultry picks up smoke easily. Don't want to over power the turkey with smoke. Just go light with some fruitwood and you'll be fine. If it's extended family it might be too much. Some eggers family members find lump to be smokey. So it all depends on who your cooking for. They will be impressed either way! 

I'd absolutely do a test run first too. Seeing a look a surprise and hearing the missus say "That's not the regular turkey" is not how I'd want to spend my thanksgiving afternoon.

MaskedMarvel

90 minutes at 400* direct spatchcock


Unfortunately not not a good way to get gravy

smbishop

Here is the classic bge turkey recipe: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/madmaxturkey.htm


I follow most of this, but now spatchcock mine.  A great way to go!!

SmokeyPitt

Turkey on the egg is phenomenal.  I would recommend doing a test run.  Last year I made gravy from the test run and had plenty for the cook on T-day.  

littlerascal56

Have bought "smoked turkey" from the custom smokers around the holidays, and they tasted like "smoked ham" with a rubbery texture.   Nothing like a regular turkey cooked at 350 on my egg, which is a more "traditional" texture and flavor.

Hawg Fan

I'm with @MaskedMarvel  - Spatchcock is the way to go on a raised grid with no wood chunks,  most charcoal will impart a small amount of smoke.

Biggreennessy

All great info. Its greatly appreciated. bo31210, when you say a light smoke how little amount of wood is that? I bought pecan wood chunks to use for my large BGE. Ive done a few spatchcock chicken, but this is my first turkey as I just got the Egg in June.

nolaegghead

lil bit of wood is good

MaskedMarvel

Pecan is the way to go

BearQ

Smoked turkey is the best, brine the bird for a few days & it's even better.

gdenby

One of the reasons I bought an Egg was yo do turkeys in cold weather. Doing them in metal cookers was too hard. As mentioned, go light on the smoke. I think oak and hickory tend to overwhelm poultry. I usually use cherry or apple. Recently began using mulberry, which yo me seems to give a slight citrus flavor to birds.

fishlessman

gdenby said:

One of the reasons I bought an Egg was yo do turkeys in cold weather. Doing them in metal cookers was too hard. As mentioned, go light on the smoke. I think oak and hickory tend to overwhelm poultry. I usually use cherry or apple. Recently began using mulberry, which yo me seems to give a slight citrus flavor to birds.

im cutting one of those trees down this week, never even gave it a thought as a smoking wood

gdenby

fishlessman said:

show previous quotes

gdenby said:

...Recently began using mulberry, which yo me seems to give a slight citrus flavor to birds.

im cutting one of those trees down this week, never even gave it a thought as a smoking wood

They grow like weeds where I live. I've been using branches to make walking sticks for a couple of years. Was cutting one flat, and being next to an Egg, I though, "Give it a try." Liked it a lot, so now I have an almost endless supply.

BTW, if you want to get rid of the tree, you will have to poison the stump, and even that might not work. I had one that took me nearly a decade to be rid of. The tiniest but of root would send it back. My very elderly uncle, who ad Alzeheimers let a few grow on his property, one next to the basement foundation. I hope I've managed to destroy it, 'cause it appears to have cracked the concrete foundation.

chef_jeff

Once you cook a turkey on the green egg you will never cook it another way! It will not dry out and it is easy to to do! I like to use pecan to give the turkey a nice color and tast. A nice citrus brind goes well to. 

bo31210

Biggreennessy said:

All great info. Its greatly appreciated. bo31210, when you say a light smoke how little amount of wood is that? I bought pecan wood chunks to use for my large BGE. Ive done a few spatchcock chicken, but this is my first turkey as I just got the Egg in June.

I usually take a fist size chunk of pecan or peach and split into fourths and place 2 of them in there (Maybe a third piece)   You can mix the two if you like.  Pecan will give you a dark tan skin from the smoke which is very nice looking (tastes good as well)    Being a Georgia boy, I like fresh peach on everything.   

tarheelmatt

Watch how much smoke wood you add and that depends highly on the lump you're using too.  

I don't use a lot of smoke wood with chicken/turkey as it takes on smoke easily.  

fishlessman

gdenby said:

show previous quotes

fishlessman said:

gdenby said:

...Recently began using mulberry, which yo me seems to give a slight citrus flavor to birds.

im cutting one of those trees down this week, never even gave it a thought as a smoking wood

They grow like weeds where I live. I've been using branches to make walking sticks for a couple of years. Was cutting one flat, and being next to an Egg, I though, "Give it a try." Liked it a lot, so now I have an almost endless supply.

BTW, if you want to get rid of the tree, you will have to poison the stump, and even that might not work. I had one that took me nearly a decade to be rid of. The tiniest but of root would send it back. My very elderly uncle, who ad Alzeheimers let a few grow on his property, one next to the basement foundation. I hope I've managed to destroy it, 'cause it appears to have cracked the concrete foundation.

  its the first ive ever seen up here and it took root between an 8 foot tall stone retainer wall that supports the driveway, not a good place. i cant believe how fast they grow.

Smoker317

I have smoked maybe 30 plus turkeys or more over the past 15 years.  We just eat more 6 pound chickens than anything.

For me, I spatchcock and brine.  I have over brined and under brined poultry.
 
I have tried multiple brines over the years on various meats and this is what works for me.  Keep it simple at the one, one, one.. concept.

1 cup kosher
1 cup brown sugar
1 gallon of water
other flavors for whatever profile you want, i.e., hot sauce, garlic, pepper, etc. for spicy or bay leaves, basil, tyme, etc. for a Thanksgiving type profile.

Plenty of brine recipes will substitute apple juice or pineapple, etc for part of the water.

When it comes to brine, your imagination is the limit of what you can conjure up.  Search for brine recipes and it quickly becomes overwhelming, that is why I stick with my 1,1,1,1 concept because it is easy for me.  I have yet to ruin meat following this guideline.

brine for 1 hour per pound of bird give or take 1 hour.

There are some brine recipes that are very complex, I have tried a good number of recipes and either can't tell a substantial difference in flavor and/or it was just a waste of time. 

I don't personally smoke anything over #14 pounds.  I have needed about 16-18 pounds on a few occasions so I smoke two ten pounders.

I like fruit tree woods for smoke.  We like smoke so my first hour is heavy smoke.   I smoke around 275-300.

Once you eat a brined and smoked turkey, you will loath having to eat oven cooked turkeys for the rest of your life.

Biggreennessy

Man.... what great advice from everyone. I am loving this forum. I'm going to go with the simple brine from smoker 317 with a little bit of pecan chunks of wood as suggested by bo31210. Its a 22 lb turkey, so it'll go on early. I'll post pics next week! ( BTW I'm up in Canada and our Thanksgiving was last weekend. We visited our daughter and family out of town and had traditional turkey. This weekend its my turn....  )

theyolksonyou

I'd take that big boy out and make sure it fits...

TCT

Spatchcocked my first last Thanksgiving and guests said it was the best they ever had. 12lb on a LBGE. Will do #2 this year. go for it!!

D1105

Glad this was posted.....One of the main reasons I picked up a BGE late in the season was to try smoking a turkey.  I've always deep fried turkey every year and wanted to try something different.  I've always deep fried 2 birds and will split it up this year with the BGE.  I have a lot of family members expecting deep fried this year so I can't remove it from the menu yet

Sweet100s

@Smoker317
have you ever tried "dry-brining" ? 

Biggreennessy

WeberWho

Picture perfect! Let us know what you and others think about it. Nice work

Biggreennessy

Well, it turned out spectacular! I brined my 22 lb overnight using the 1-1-1 solution, added 3 small chunks of soaked pecan wood, put it in at 9:15am at 225 for the first hour. raised the temp to 350 after that, occasionally added chicken broth to the pan for added moisture. Took it off the egg at 3:15 when the first thermometer in the thigh read 170 and the second one in the stuffing read 168 ( Ialso double checked the calibration on my thermometers because it seemed to be cooking quite fast... about 4 lbs per hour as opposed to 3 lbs per hour in a standard oven). Foiled it for 2 hours while we got everything else ready, still carved up nice and hot and juicy! The dressing was a big hit too, nice smoky flavour, everyone said they'd never had anything like it. Thanks again for all of the advice!