Rotisserie Style Turkey on 22 1/2" One Touch Silver

First, my name is Jason and this is my first post on this site. I don't remember how I stumbled across this site, but I'm very thankful I found it. I have a 22 1/2" OTS grill with a brand new Rotisserie that I just received in the mail last Friday. With that being said, I'll be making my first attempt at Cooking a Turkey Rotisserie style this Sunday. I'll be following all tips found on this website:

http://www.dadcooksdinner.com/2009/04/rotisserie-recipes-on-dadcooksdinner.html

However, if anyone else has some good tips, not already covered on this website, I would appreciate any and all suggestions to make my first attempt a successful one. I'll be using his recipe for the Orange and Spice Dry Brine, also found on the same website.

*NOTE: This is NOT an advertisement for this website. I just thought it had a lot of good, useful information that is done in a way that a newbie like me can follow (the Video for Trussing the turkey seems easy to follow). So if anyone has better tips or advice, I would be forever grateful to read them here, thanks!

Oh, and I promise to come back after the turkey is done and let everyone know how it turned out. I'll try to take a picture or two of the finished product, too.

Brined poultry is awesome. I'll be looking forward to your post cook photos.

Well, here's an update on how the turkey turned out: It was just okay. However, I made two mistakes. One intentional, one not intentional. The intentional one was that I put a stick of butter inside the cavity of the turkey. I don't think it helped to keep the turkey moist like I had hoped, but that may have been due to the unintentional mistake. The directions I was following called for 3/4 of a chimney worth of charcoal to start - I used a full one, that was my unintentional mistake, 'cause I had forgotten that I was supposed to only us 3/4 worth of charcoal to start So, the turkey got too hot and actually finished cooking 90 minutes sooner than expected (and probably even sooner than that). It's a good thing I put a thermometer in the leg when I did or else it wouldn't have been worth eating, even with gravy.

The positives I can take from the experience was that using Kingsford Mesquite Charcoal and 3 chunks of Mesquite would did produce a very nice smokey flavor to the bird. However, I couldn't really taste the brine that I used, which may have been due to the butter or the heat or I don't know.

Sorry guys, i forgot to take pictures of the finished bird. I wasn't really in the mood to take pictures after the way things went. I'll try cooking one again for Christmas, and hopefully it will turn out better than my first attempt.

If anyone has more tips or ideas that they'd like to pass along, I'd appreciate any and all feedback/help that you can give. Thanks!

Well , there you go. Live and learn. Next time try a few cut up lemons and a few garlic cloves , maybe some fresh rosemary inside the cavity and put the butter under the skin where it can melt into the meat. I bet the dark meat was at least ok , right? Just the white meat get a bit dry? You won't make those mistakes again and I bet your next turkey comes out great.

Do you have a Weber rotisserie ring? If you do the ring doesn't have a good seal where the ring fits on the grill and your grill is going to run hot if you don't do anything about it. To fix this problem make some strips out of aluminum foil and shove them into the gaps and you will have a lot easier time controlling your kettle temps.

UPDATE: So i went back and re-read the directions I was attemping to follow, and discovered that my time/math was off. I should have been taking the temp on the bird at the 2 hour mark. For some reason (I don't know how), I thought it was going to take 3 1/2 hours for the bird to cook (Vice 2 - 2 1/2 Hrs). *insert face into palm*

John Solak, Thanks to for your suggestion of using Aluminum foil to plug the holes, and help better regulate the temp - I will definitely do that next time.

John Sp, I think next time I will try the Apple Brine Recipe you linked to, I think I *might* like it better.

One other note from my experience: If you like the smokey flavor of mesquite, the way I did my turkey gave a lot of that smokey flavor to the bird. I used the Kingsford Mesquite charcoal and 3 large chunks of mesquite wood. I liked the flavor, but almost thought it was a bit too strong. If I try this option again, I think I'll only use 1 chunk of wood vice 3, and that *should* be enough.

Anyway, thanks for the comments and words of encouragement. I will try making another bird for Christmas at home (going to mom's house for Thanksgiving this year, so she'll be doing all the cooking). I'm hoping to have this perfected by the time Thanksgiving rolls around in 2013, and invite the family to my house next year.

John S suggestion is right on. I do this anytime I use my rotisserie.

Something to think about...Mesquite is a fairly strong smoke. If you do the apple brine give apple wood a try for a lighter smoke flavor. On thing I learned about smoke is error on the side of using to little. The food is still edible. Error on the side of too much and you might as well chuck all your work. Something else, if you dont want such a prominent flavor of charcoal then wait until the coal are ashed over then add your smoke wood and start cooking. This allows more of the flavor of the wood smoke to be noticed rather than that of the charcoal.