NAILED IT!!

[Tim (the grillaholic)]

As a tradition, we try not to eat turkey for thanksgiving, and try some other main dish. Well, my wife's grandfather asked that we do a turkey this year, so....
My mother in law bought the bird, a 13#er and the wife placed it in the fridge earlier this week. I went to get the bird out to prepare it for its apple brine bath, I was surprised to see "self basting" on the lable. NO BRINE BATH for this one.
This morning, around 09:30, I cleaned and towel dried the bird, then I put a thin coating of oil on it, and sprinkled some Cajun Injector Cajun Shake. Put the turkey on the smoker right at 10:00, and kept the temps right around 250-270 throughout. I placed 3 chunks of apple on top of the lit coals.
The turkey took a little over 4 hrs to get to 163*, but man was it worth the wait! This was BY FAR THE BEST TURKEY I HAVE EVER PREPARED! Super juicy, awesome deep brown color, and a sweet smoke flavor that was OUT OF THIS WORLD!! If I could nail this flavor every time, I would cook turkey throughout the year!!
I hope everyone's grills performed as hoped, great times were had with family and friends, and we all got to relax just a little bit today!!
Happy Thanksgiving'
Tim

 

[R_Sanchez]

Congratulations Tim!

Thanksgiving turkey seems to one of most stressful cooks, but when it works out its very rewarding.

 

[Mike P.]

Sounds like a perfect smoke Sir! Congratulations.

 

[Ernest Buckley]

Nice to hear, I too smoked a 15 lb. turkey and it came out exceptionally well. My mother in law does the bulk of the cooking on Thanksgiving Day so she had two turkeys in the oven already but honestly, oven turkey is always dry. The smoked turkey was moist and very tasty. I think I will smoke a turkey every year in addition to her two for variety. Considering the amount of people we usually cook for: 30!... three turkeys is enough and we still have leftovers.

The only adjustment I need to make is to put the turkey on a little earlier. By the time it was ready, everyone at the two oven turkeys and were stuffed. My turkey was eventually distributed out to everyone for left overs.