Mad Max's Thanksgiving Turkey

Monty77

My family was asking for a BGE turkey again this year, so I went with the Mad Max recipe as it has never let me down.  

http://www.nakedwhiz.com/madmaxturkey.htm

15 lb bird, washed and dried, no brine.  Stuffed the bird with gala apples, sliced lemon, S&P, garlic, and a bouquet of fresh herbs from the garden.  XL was stable at 325* and I had cherry and apple wood in for smoke.  I cut up some carrots, celery, onions, garlic and placed some fresh rosemary into the roasting pan.  I had the breast icing for twenty minutes before the bird was to hit the egg.  I melted the butter, mixed in the herbs and put back in the fridge to solidify the paste. it firmed up, I rubbed the entire bird with the butter/herb mixture and poured some white wine over the bird and into the cavity.  







I now placed the turkey on the Egg for its 4-5 hour journey.  I will let it go for the first hour, and then baste every 30 minutes until the IT's are right.  






Turkey took just over 4.5 hours, breast was 168*, dark was 187*.  Rested for 20 minutes and sliced and served with my garlic mashed potatoes, squash from the Mini Max, stuffing, butter and brown sugar glazed carrots, and the oooohhhh sooooo good turkey gravy from the recipe.  Amazing moist turkey with a wonderful flavour.  Sorry, I forgot to get pics of the stock prep and cooking for the gravy, but here is a finished pic of the meal (not a great shot, but you get the idea).  

GalanteNate_OneEa

Great documentary of your cook! Looks like it came out great!

Carolina Q

Beautiful cook! I never seem to be where there is an egg at turkey time. I did do a mad max max bird in Mom's oven a few years ago. It was delicious! One of these days I will egg one. Hope it looks as good as yours. 

Cookinbob

 Looks great! Are you Canadian? This will be my third year doing a mad Max turkey, but it's about five weeks in the future

Monty77

Hey @Cookinbob, Yes I am from Canada.  That turkey looks stellar!  

LKNEgg

Book marked.  Tough decision between the big green egg and the big easy for thanksgiving turkey this year! May have to do both!

D1105

Following....Thanks for the write up and pics!

djbade

Wow... that's a nice looking bird... Job well done

Chicklet

bookmarked

tfhanson

So how big of a bird can you get on the large egg.  I did not have my egg last year.

Davec433

@Monty77 how many chips/chunks did you go with?

NPHuskerFL

Never done a Mad Max Turkey period. Looks great!  Fantastic dialog with pictorial!  I was hoping for a centerfold  Nice work. 

Carolina Q

NPHuskerFL said:

Never done a Mad Max Turkey period. Looks great!  Fantastic dialog with pictorial!  I was hoping for a centerfold  Nice work. 

Blake, do yourself a favor and give it a shot. Just look at Max's pics!  Not to mention the great ones above!! I never seem to be near an egg when it's turkey time so I can only imagine how good it would be on an egg. All I know is, that recipe/method is outstanding in a regular oven!! Max Rosen RULES Turkey Day!!

NPHuskerFL

@Carolina Q Michael I'll try to talk @HuskerMaMa into it. She has her heart set on my herbal infused spatchcock.

WeberWho

Carolina Q said:

Beautiful cook! I never seem to be where there is an egg at turkey time. I did do a mad max max bird in Mom's oven a few years ago. It was delicious! One of these days I will egg one. Hope it looks as good as yours. 

@Carolina Q Skip the oven this year. Turkey is worth the extra effort. Worth trying once

Carolina Q

WeberWho? said:

Carolina Q said:

Beautiful cook! I never seem to be where there is an egg at turkey time. I did do a mad max max bird in Mom's oven a few years ago. It was delicious! One of these days I will egg one. Hope it looks as good as yours. 

@Carolina Q Skip the oven this year. Turkey is worth the extra effort. Worth trying once

To be clear, I am not avoiding the egg, it's just that I am usually about 400 miles away from mine when it's time to do a turkey. And in fact, my SIL usually does the cooking anyway. I was just saying that Max's recipe is awesome, even without an egg! 

Monty77

tfhanson said:

So how big of a bird can you get on the large egg.  I did not have my egg last year.

I did lots of 14-18 lb birds in my large, havn't tried anything bigger as my family is just not big enough to warrant a bigger turkey.  I believe 22-24 lb turkeys are doable in the large, just never had the reason to do one yet.  Best advice is ensure that your roasting pan fits inside the large well before the event, and then try the bird in the pan a day or two prior to the cook.  I use balls of tin foil to create an air gap between the plate setter and roasting pan to avoid burning the drippings and keep me as low as possible in the egg.  

Monty77

Davec433 said:

@Monty77 how many chips/chunks did you go with?

I have always found turkey to absorb smoke quickly, so I find less is more on this cook.  I used two chunks of cherry and a handful of apple chips around the perimeter of the egg.  I waited about 35 minutes until the smoke turned the bluish white and smelled amazing.  

Monty77

@NPHuskerFL, 

I gotta say, I am not a big turkey guy, but the Egg really brings a new dimension of flavour and moisture to this Thanksgiving tradition.  This recipe is the best of all the ones I have tried.  If you can ever find the opportunity, I highly recommend it, you'll love it.  Leftovers are stellar as well, just saying!  

johnnyp

Looking good.  I'm doing a test run on a turkey this weekend.  Looking forward to it and am glad you posted this ahead of time

chadpsualum

Has anyone tried this method w/ a brine (or injection)?  Is it truly not necessary?

tfhanson

Monty77 said:

tfhanson said:

So how big of a bird can you get on the large egg.  I did not have my egg last year.

I did lots of 14-18 lb birds in my large, havn't tried anything bigger as my family is just not big enough to warrant a bigger turkey.  I believe 22-24 lb turkeys are doable in the large, just never had the reason to do one yet.  Best advice is ensure that your roasting pan fits inside the large well before the event, and then try the bird in the pan a day or two prior to the cook.  I use balls of tin foil to create an air gap between the plate setter and roasting pan to avoid burning the drippings and keep me as low as possible in the egg.  

Thanks Monty.  I have a small crowd, but I always try to cook the largest bird I can cause it's once a year and I love the leftover turkey sandwiches...... I'll see what roasting pan fits in the egg and go from there.

lousubcap

Last year I did a 21 lb turkey in a LBGE.  To get enough height, I removed the fire ring and set a grate on top of the fire box.  Then used the platesetter with air gapped drip pan.  Roasting rack (non-mad max) sitting on the plate setter had enough clearance to get the bird above the drip pan to allow an all-around cook.  FYI-

Davec433

Monty77 said:

Davec433 said:

@Monty77 how many chips/chunks did you go with?

I have always found turkey to absorb smoke quickly, so I find less is more on this cook.  I used two chunks of cherry and a handful of apple chips around the perimeter of the egg.  I waited about 35 minutes until the smoke turned the bluish white and smelled amazing.  

Thanks for the reply. I'm definitely doing one this Thanksgiving just didn't want to over do it with the smoke.

Monty77

Davec433 said:

Monty77 said:

Davec433 said:

@Monty77 how many chips/chunks did you go with?

I have always found turkey to absorb smoke quickly, so I find less is more on this cook.  I used two chunks of cherry and a handful of apple chips around the perimeter of the egg.  I waited about 35 minutes until the smoke turned the bluish white and smelled amazing.  

Thanks for the reply. I'm definitely doing one this Thanksgiving just didn't want to over do it with the smoke.

Enjoy, you are gonna love it!  

chadpsualum

lousubcap said:

Last year I did a 21 lb turkey in a LBGE.  To get enough height, I removed the fire ring and set a grate on top of the fire box.  Then used the platesetter with air gapped drip pan.  Roasting rack (non-mad max) sitting on the plate setter had enough clearance to get the bird above the drip pan to allow an all-around cook.  FYI-

With taking out the fire ring you took out available lump space right?  Were you able to get enough lump in with just the firebox to sustain the long turkey cook?  What temp and how long?

SoCalWJS

chadpsualum said:

Has anyone tried this method w/ a brine (or injection)?  Is it truly not necessary?

I tried brining before doing Mad Max several Thanksgiving's ago and never stopped doing them that way. I use a version of JAppledog's brine (from the old days), then closely follow Mad Max's latest version (hosted at Naked Whiz's site). Best Turkey in the world IMHO. Don't get to do them very often at Thanksgiving as we're usually at a relative's house who don't have a BGE (just a gasser). One year I took my BGE there and did a MM. Host insisted on doing one their way (we had around 20 people, so 2 birds was no problem).

Mad Max was preferred by all and quickly devoured.

lousubcap

@chadpsualum - You are right that you lose space for lump but by filling to around the top of the fire box I had plenty of lump.  I used Rockwood.  For turkey I figure around 12 mins/lb at about 350*F on the dome.   Usually works out fairly close.  Hope this helps.

mattk330

I've made this before and it was just amazing.  I've been requested to bring a bird for Thanksgiving this year.  Here is my quandary:  Thanksgiving dinner is an hour drive away (noontime T dinner).  I plan to cook this at home on my BGE.  How do I pull this off?  By the time I make the gravy, get in the car and drive there, the bird could be cold as ice.  What do I do?  I thought about pulling out the roasting pan an hour early (swapping it for a fresh pan with just some hot water or the broth to finish out the cook) and making the gravy while the bird finishes up on the BGE.  Does this sound crazy?  Am I going to miss the best drippings?  How do I transport?  Should I wrap the bird (and roaster) in aluminum foil and/or place it in a cooler to transport?  Will it turn to mush?

Thoughts????  Please help! (I may post a separate thread all together on this)

Davec433

Did my test run on the XL for Thanksgiving with a 12.5 lb bird. Brined in Perfect Turkey Apple for 4 days and cooked it at 350-400 with a handfull of cherry chips. Sad to say it was disgusting and I had to toss it. On Thanksgiving I'm not going to brine and theirs going to be no added smoke. It had tons of moisture but I think it spent to long in the brine and soaked up to much herbyness.

Monty77

Sorry to hear this one didn't turn out as you'd have liked @Davec433, good thing it was a test run and you get to learn from mistakes and ace the next one.