Dave Lewis
TVWBB Super Fan
This weekend, I smoked my best turkey yet. First, let me say that I'm NOT a big turkey fan. However, my wife brought home 13.5 lb prebasted "Norbest Tender-Timed Young Turkey" and wanted me to smoke it the WSM on Sunday. (My wife thinks my WSM is the best cooking investment we ever made) I was not entirely pleased because I prefer a 100% natural turkey that I could brine myself rather than an commercially injected bird.(Or so I thought) Because it was injected, brining was out of the question.
The label said "enhanced with a 7 1/2 % solution of natural turkey broth." According to the Norbest website: "Norbest Tender-Timed Young Turkeys are Grade A premium quality, deep basted throughout with natural turkey broth. We've added no fats, oils, sugars, or MSG like some other major brands."
Anyway, I put a commercial cajun spice rub on it that had been sitting the cupboard from a prior deep fat fried turkey cook. I fired up the WSM for a 325-350 temp, no water in the pan, standard method cook. I used two chimneys of Kingsford. One lit and the other dumped on top. When all coals were a nice gray, I put on one fist sized chunk of cherry wood and the bird. No mopping, no turning. 3 hours and 20 minutes later the thigh hit 176 degrees and the breast 167, so off she came.
Unfortunately I had temp control problems (some days are like that). I had a swirling wind during the first half of the cook which played havoc with my temps. When the bird first went on the lid temp was too high for my Polder to read (392 max temp) so I cranked the bottom vents down to about 25% each and burped the lid several times. The temps began coming down after about 30 minutes. I kept checking every 15 minutes and hoped the temps would stabilize in the 325-350 range. They didn't. I got distracted with chores and let my temp drop to 309 before I caught it. Oops. I opened the vents at little, but the temp didn't rise in the next 15 minutes. So I opened them a litte more to about 50% and the temps finally came up to 330 and were stable for the last hour and a half (by then the wind had died).
I let it rest for 30 minutes under foil and carved her up. There was a light smoke ring that reached almost 1/2 inch deep in the breast even with only one chuck of cherry. (My last turkey cook I used 2 fist sized chunks of apple wood and felt the smoke flavor was borderline too strong) Extremely moist and tender. It was the best turkey I had ever eaten and incredibly simple to prep and cook. I might just forget about brining turkey altogether and keep buying these prebasted Norbest birds. I heartily recommend anyone wanting an easy, no fuss, inexpensive WSM cook to try a good prebasted turkey. Just keep an eye on your temps.
The label said "enhanced with a 7 1/2 % solution of natural turkey broth." According to the Norbest website: "Norbest Tender-Timed Young Turkeys are Grade A premium quality, deep basted throughout with natural turkey broth. We've added no fats, oils, sugars, or MSG like some other major brands."
Anyway, I put a commercial cajun spice rub on it that had been sitting the cupboard from a prior deep fat fried turkey cook. I fired up the WSM for a 325-350 temp, no water in the pan, standard method cook. I used two chimneys of Kingsford. One lit and the other dumped on top. When all coals were a nice gray, I put on one fist sized chunk of cherry wood and the bird. No mopping, no turning. 3 hours and 20 minutes later the thigh hit 176 degrees and the breast 167, so off she came.
Unfortunately I had temp control problems (some days are like that). I had a swirling wind during the first half of the cook which played havoc with my temps. When the bird first went on the lid temp was too high for my Polder to read (392 max temp) so I cranked the bottom vents down to about 25% each and burped the lid several times. The temps began coming down after about 30 minutes. I kept checking every 15 minutes and hoped the temps would stabilize in the 325-350 range. They didn't. I got distracted with chores and let my temp drop to 309 before I caught it. Oops. I opened the vents at little, but the temp didn't rise in the next 15 minutes. So I opened them a litte more to about 50% and the temps finally came up to 330 and were stable for the last hour and a half (by then the wind had died).
I let it rest for 30 minutes under foil and carved her up. There was a light smoke ring that reached almost 1/2 inch deep in the breast even with only one chuck of cherry. (My last turkey cook I used 2 fist sized chunks of apple wood and felt the smoke flavor was borderline too strong) Extremely moist and tender. It was the best turkey I had ever eaten and incredibly simple to prep and cook. I might just forget about brining turkey altogether and keep buying these prebasted Norbest birds. I heartily recommend anyone wanting an easy, no fuss, inexpensive WSM cook to try a good prebasted turkey. Just keep an eye on your temps.