Smoked Turkey not so smokey

tarheel

I just got my BGE. We tryed the Smoked Turkey recipe out of the BGE cookbook. The turkey turned out great. It was the most tender and juicy that I have ever eaten. We couldn't really taste a smokey flavor althought I thought we used plenty of woodchips. We added a few chips throughout the cooking time. Should we have used chunks of wood in conjunction with chips? Should this be the case for all smoking applications?

stike

did you eat the skin?

skin is waterproof, and smoke proof.
if you had smoke throughout the cook, you should have had smoke flavor, certainly.

smoke flavor doesn't 'penetrate' into the meat per se, so if you took the skin off, that would take away much of the smoke. still, the drumsticks,and wings should have had smoke (nobody takes the skin of those, right)? , and even handling the breast meat when carving should help move some smokiness around.

chips or chunks are fine... especially if you had smoke during the whole cook.

and turkey really is mild enough that ANY smoke will stand out. i get more than enough from the lump, not even adding chips.
hmmmm.

kinda weird if you ask me. you didn't (stupid question, i know) foil it during the cook, didja?

TomM24

I smoked a turkey with hickory chips on thanksgiving. Spiralled about two handfuls in the lump. That day it didn't taste very smokey but the leftovers did. Probalby as stike said the smoke is all in the skin overnight and cut up in a bag the smoke flavor got distributed,

Grandpas Grub

I make 3 ro 4 boats for cherry chips when smoking Turkey and 2 to 3 when doing chicken.

The boats are 4 to 5 inches long and apx 2 inches wide. Some have dry chips others have soaked chips with water in the bottom of the HDAF boats. I close up the foil and poke a few holes in the top of the foil.

I also sprinkle some dry chips around the lump.

Skin on the turkey & chicken. We always get a nice smoke flavor in the meat.

When eating leftovers the cherry smoke flavor permeates the meat and has a great flavor for snacking and sandwiches.

Not sure why you and others are not getting smoke in the Turkey meat.

GG

Darnoc

To get a smoke flavor in your turkey you will have to cook at a lower temperature.Like 250/300 and put your apple or cherry chips in at the beginning of the cook it will take 20/30 minutes per pound to cook the bird.As usual 180 in the leg or 160 in the breast.I like smoked chicken or turkey once in a while just for sandwich fare but I don't like it as much for the main meal.The better half does not like smoked poultry mainly for the fact that it is something that a smoke flavor can over power the mild texture of the meat.

thirdeye

I'm not that familiar with the BGE cookbook, but I do understand a little about smoking....The answer may lie in terminology or actually what you expected in the finished product. In other words, if you cooked it at say roasting temperatures (350°), even with some flavor wood added, you would get roasted turkey with maybe a lightly smoke flavor.

On the other hand, if you were trying to duplicate smokehouse quality smoked turkey you may have had .... those birds are usually prepared with a brine and often a brine with some curing agents before smoking. A brine will allow some flavor and additional moisture into the meat and a curing agent will slightly change the texture and will "pink up" the color. When smoking, the temperature of the cooker is lower than roasting temperatures (maybe 250° or 275° to start and then raised later to crisp the skin), which allows the meat to take more flavor. Here is a smoked breast.



Here is some dark meat from smoked turkey, notice the pink color.

TomM24

I used apple chips. I wasn't going for a real smokey flavor.

Austin Smoker

Thirdeye - that looks incredible! Gotta love the leg and thigh meat! :P

tarheel

Thanks for the feedback. I think I was trying to smoke at roasting temperatures(350 instead of 250 or 275.