Help please, Mad Max turkey test run problems

I never had any luck other than spatchcock turkey. My only suggestion is that your temp is on the low side

I would say there is no need to raise the pan above the grid.  Your pan may be too deep, and your bird may be too deep in the pan.  Also, you do not need the water pan on the plate setter, I think it is part of the problem.  Here is a pic of my setup from last year which worked perfectly.

Calibrate your thermometer on the dome just to make sure it was cooking at 325. ;;)

I cooked one of these on Saturday, and followed the Mad Max recipe to a T.  No issues, timing was about dead on, and cooked at 325 (Dome).  I would check your thermometer/placement. I would also do as mentioned above, get rid of the water pan.

legs toward the hinge is better, but your problem may have been tying the legs together, if you did dont do that next time. you dont need a pan of water under the roasting pan full of liquids

If it was high in the dome that is probably the issue- it picks up a lot of radiant heat from the ceramic right above the breast. I had same issue on a brisket and @sgh figured out why it cooked so fast.

Icing the breast is a must. I take the turkey out of the fridge at least two to three hours before it hits the egg. My prep sink is where it sits. The ice bags are freshened a minimum of twice. The last Mad Max I did was a couple of months ago, I did check the temp of the raw bird after icing the breasts for more than two hours while it sat in my prep sink. The thigh was almost 10º warmer than the breast.  

Have you tried Vertical roasting?  That is my plan for this year... I love the results that I get from vert roasting chicken, and I figure Turkey will react the same... This will reduce the cooking time as well, since the inside of the bird gets heat as well...

We had two turkey (MadMax) cooks last week and our 14lb birds cooked at 345 for 2.5hrs each time.   Seems like you have it dialed in, not sure I see where you problem is.

EggBaker81 said:

Have you tried Vertical roasting?  That is my plan for this year... I love the results that I get from vert roasting chicken, and I figure Turkey will react the same... This will reduce the cooking time as well, since the inside of the bird gets heat as well...

Never done it with a turkey, but someone has to try vertical inverted. I invert chicken all the time, LS turned me on to it - the thighs are higher in the dome where it is hotter so they finish the same time as the breasts. (vertical inverted means to stand the chicken on its head, feet up)

tridogdude said:

That's what I like about this place. If you have a question there is no shortage of people willing to help one solve the problems they are having. Thanks to everyone who chimed in here. 

@ShadowNick   I heard this mentioned quite a bit in some of these forums and that just may be what I need to do. Was trying to duplicate what Mad Max did but that didn't seem to work. The bird ended up good but my timing was way the hell off (do to a heat problem I now know from you and others)

@EggBaker81   I haven't tried vertical yet on the egg but once I get this horizontal method down will give it a shot with chicken. That and spatchcock is something I want to work on. 

@Skiddymarker   I had the bird out of fridge for just over two hours and iced for 20 minutes. Are you icing for longer than that while the bird is on your prep sink? I didn't check the breast temp before throwing on the grill but you bring up a good point and I will make sure to do that this coming T-Day. I'm going to pile the ice on them this next time. 

@Wolfpack   Yeah, it was high in the dome. Going to take the suggestion of @ShadowNick and get rid of the grill and cook it on the platesetter elevated on something to get air below the roasting pan. 

@fishlessman  I did have the legs toward the back and the legs were not tied together. There was a little plastic clip in there that didn't get pulled out until after the cook so maybe that should have come out?? Could you elaborate on what you mean by legs being together? 

@GrannyX4  The dome thermometer will be calibrated tonight. My Maverick is clipped to the dome during my cooks and it reads 5 degrees higher than that consistently so I will calibrate both. Thanks for the reminder. 

@itsmce   Repositioning the probe was my first thought when the temps didn't jive so did this with two different thermometers and they were consistent. Even the thick part of the breast was reading the same as up high in the thinner part. After I did this test was when I was really starting to shake my head wondering. 

@cazzy   The legs were toward the hinge of the egg and the position of the Y of the platesetter was with the v part of the Y toward the back. Read that in several other posts here. Is that similar to what you do? 

@fusionhq   Yes, the water pan is going away. That seems to be a common suggestion from others. Going with the bird on the platesetter there will be no way I will be able to do so.  Are you cooking the bird high in the dome or right on top of the platesetter? If you're cooking on the platesetter, are you going just with the dome thermometer? If you're using a Maverick, are you positioning this in another spot other than clipping to the dome? If so, where? 

that plastic clip holds the legs down against the cold meat of the bird, remove it and let the legs spread without the chill coming off the bird the legs will cook faster, that clip is for packaging purposes and not for cooking even though moms have been doing that for decades
)

@Cookinbob‌ they appear to be the same pan. I wonder what the difference is other than the $15?? It looks from the photo that you have an xl.-- I'll have to measure my large tonight to see if it'll fit.

I can tell you that my pan worked perfectly following the Mad Max recipe.  Here are finished pics of the turkey, pan drippings, and finished gravy from last year.  This was a total success.