First Turkey


 
Wolgast

Wolgast

TVWBB Olympian
My oldest kid turned 4 years old so so we had some guests over.
I have never done a turkey before so i thought it would be great to try and smoke a bird.

Did Cris apple brine http://tvwbb.com/eve/forums/a/...0069052/m/8380093152

But my wsm dident go up to 350 but settled @ 300-325 witch i still think was an ok cooking temp. took about 2h 45 min to reach 160 internal breast temp.

The bird was a 12lb frosen one that was pre marinated(couldent find an all naturall)

So i did drop the salt and sugar ratio in the brine alittle bit.

A well thats

Some pics

24hours in the brine ready to come out

20Hour drying the skin up in the fridge,tied up,wings folded back ready to hit the wsm.

Had a drip pan on the lover grate

My first look at the bird at around half time

Done ready to come off

Rested 30 min before carving over the drip pan

Rdy to serve



It was a big hit(but i still think it was over smoked) used 2 fist sized apple chunks.

Tryed to make a gravy of the drippings and it tasted like a bad smokey whiskey a well i know what to improve next time.

Thx for stopping by
 
That's a great color on the bird!

Poultry is easy to over smoke, as you now know. I sometimes think there's enough smoke deposited on the inside of my WSM that I could cook a chicken or turkey with no wood at all.
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Man that thang looks tasty, Wolgast! I'm surprised about the excessive smoke taste, though, since I thought apple was s'posed to produce a relatively mild smoke flavor.

I'm partial to extra smoke, though, which is why I generally use hickory on turkey....
 
Wonderful color.

I use the equivalent of 1/2 of a fist-sized chunk (cut into 3 or 4 pieces) with turkey, whatever wood I am using. For sauce/gravy, I make a standard base then add a little of the drippings at the end, for flavor. I don't build it from the drippings as one might normally, because I find the result over-the-top.

Looks really great.
 
Very nice looking. Yet another bit of inspiration for me to try on my WSM. Thanks for the info about the smokiness level.
 
I did that same recipe for Thanksgiving last year and turned out awesome. We had 2 turkeys one from the oven and one I did in the WSM. Guess which one went first? No leftovers of my bird, but that's ok.

I used cherry chunks instead and did not come out too smokey at all.
 
wow ! i banged my head on the monitor trying to lick that turkey. far as smoke is concerned, i'm one of those that thinks less is more.
 
I call fowl! you had to have bumped up the color saturation on the action shots. If not you got to teach me how to get that color
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BTW, I stopped trying to make gravy from brined birds, the drippings are too salty.

nice work, it looks great!
 
Thx for all nice comments.

But the thing is i had to carve then let it cool and serve the day after with actually destroyed the skin,im not a big skin eater myself and the Refrigerate/reheating made it to rubbery for my taste alot of the guessts loved it anyway but i dident care for it. We only have a smal refrigerator so i had no choise then to do it 1 day ahead,the kids cakes needed some room in there.

About the color i think the sugar in the brine really helped. I did wash the skin after the brine as the recipe said,and i have seen some that dident wash it and those were almost black.

And maby even the 20H rest in the Refrigerator to dry up the skin helped with the color.

Only had a thin coating of veg oil on the bird when it hit the smoker.

Emilies cakes:



 
Fantastic looking bird!
I'm so glad for this post, have a turkey coming up, and I'm sure I would have made the same mistakes as you did with the gravy and amount of smoke wood.

Nice looking bass guitar, as well.
 
Beautiful bird, Daniel.

Next, you'll have to try Larry's Jack Daniels/Maple syrup brine. It's one of my faves.
 
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