Mad Max Turkey questions/problems--follow up to the follow up with pix, I hope (Warning, there are s

Hustling Hare

I thought I'd close the loop on my questions that you all so ably helped with earlier. The turkey came out pretty good and all ate and complimented my highly for it. Great Christmas day. Let me give a couple of postmortem observations first.[p]Max Max' ice bag treatment is of only limited value if one staggers out of bed early in the morning, starts the fire, and preps the bird after just removing it from the refrigerator, and then putting it on the fire as soon as possible. There isn't enough time to generate the necessary temperature differential between the breast and the rest of the turkey. Consequently my turkey was a touch dry in the breasts. I pulled it at 172 deg breast temp and 179 deg thigh temp. I noticed the white meat was a touch dry although not noticeable to anyone but me. [p]In spite of the admonitions of you fine folks things got a bit hectic inside and I didn't pay enough attention to the juices in the pan and they did get a little dark. As a result the gravy was a bit dark and strong. Please, Santa, give me a little more serenity next year.[p]On to the pictures. I discovered that Photobucket has revamped their site since TNW wrote his fine account of how to post pix here. Hopefully I understood enough and know enough html to get this right:[p][p]

[p][p]The charcoal load[p][p][p][p]Plate setter and spacers[p][p][p][p]Add my roasting pan and corner shields[p][p][p][p]The turkey is ready to go[p][p][p][p]In the egg, ready to cook. Note that Santa brought me a DigiQII[p][p][p][p]Here are my cooking temp probes as I had them for the duration.[p][p][p][p]One hour in, looks like a bionic bird. No more in progress pictures, things are getting hectic in the house.[p][p][p][p]Dinner going on the table. That's curried Butternut Squash soup for a starter.[p][p][p]
Here's the carved bird (1/2 of it). Sorry I didn't have a chance to shoot the bird prior to carving[p][p]

[p]

mad max beyond eggdome

Hustling Hare,
not sure why you keep running out of liquid in your pan. ..gonna have to keep working that one. ...no matter when i pull the turkey out of the fridge, i still ice the breasts. ..it will still create a difference in temps between breast and thigh ...a little is still better than none at all .. ..[p]sounds like it was still awfully good!

Big'un

Hustling Hare,
Great pics. Merry Christmas to you and yours! I'm at a loss for why your pan still runs dry;I cooked my turkey last night and I got almost 6 cups of broth, nearly 4 cups after fat was removed. What kind of turkey are you purchasing?

Unknown

Big'un,[p]I had a similar problem with lack of drippings in the pan. i have done the Mad Max many times before and never had an issue.[p]I woke my wife up in the middle of the night last night to tell her I had figured out why.....I pulled the bird, took out the aromatics, AND FORGOT TO DUMP THE JUICE INTO THE PAN!!!!

Hustling Hare

mad max beyond eggdome,[p]I didn't mean to imply that I went dry. I did indeed get a couple of cups of liquid, about half fat. There were, however, some pretty black/scorched lumps in the bottom of the pan. I think it was because I didn't replenish the liquid much since I was very busy in the kitchen with the other stuff (cornbread dressing, rice dressing, sweet potatoes, dinner rolls). Wife did most of the dressings but she kept me involved.[p]Relative to temps, I did generate about an 8 to 10 deg temp differential according to the thermometer probes I inserted at the start. I apparently maintained that differential but the common wisdom here is a 20 deg. differential is desired. That would imply starting with a 20 degree diff. Hard to do so early in the morning.[p]...and, yes, it was awfully good. I and everyone else ate 'til we hurt.[p]Stewart

Hustling Hare

Big'un,[p]Note my comment to MM. I did have some at the end, just not enough and way over cooked due to my admitted inattention.[p]The turkey was an HEB all natural fresh (never frozen) turkey.

Big'un

ScottsdaleEgg,
That may be the important information we were looking for! Problem solved! Haha. Hope you feel better this morning after she brained you for waking her up.LOL.