MattP
TVWBB Super Fan
Yesterday was a day of firsts for me. First time smoking a turkey. First time using lump in my WSM. First time doing a hot squat. Before I get into sharing details of everything I just have to say how great of an experience it was-- and the resources on this website and forum were a huge help.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to share from the turkey cook. With it being my first I didn't feel like I could concentrate on both-- also didn't help that I was surrounded by family while all this was going on. I'll do my best to keep things from causing folks from going all TL;DR on me...
Christmas was at my house this year. I got a 21 pound fresh turkey from a local farm. I soaked it in a brine for 24 hours starting Monday night. The brine was a basic one listed on the main portion of the website-- just water/salt/brown sugar. Upon removal from the brine I let the bird 'dry' in my fridge overnight Tuesday.
Wednesday morning rolled around and outside I went to begin the journey. Fired up a chimney of Cowboy Gold lump and dumped it into the WSM. I topped it off with a chimney of unlit and assembled the cooker. After maybe 20 minutes I was holding steady around 325 and loaded up the bird.
I anticipated the temp would drop with the addition of all this meat, but that sucker dropped a solid 50 degrees! After about 30 minutes the WSM was having trouble getting much above 300 degrees, and I started to think I probably should have added two chimneys of lit lump at the start. So, outside I went to fire up another chimney of the stuff. Once it was ready I paused, said a prayer to the BBQ gods, and attempted my first ever hot squat. Thankfully all went well, but boy was I scared about dumping everything, especially with the weight of that 21 pound bird in the cooking section!
Adding the extra lit coal did the trick-- my temps jumped up very quickly and I had no problems keeping it 330-350 the rest of the way. The cook went very smoothly-- my Maverick food probe started to give a reading of 155 after about 3.5 hours, so I started to check the bird every 15 minutes. At 4 hours on the nose I got readings of 160-165 throughout the breast and 170-175 in the thigh. Off came the bird, and into the kitchen for a 40 minute rest.
This turkey's skin wound up being a beautiful golden/brown color and it was just the right amount of crispy. The meat was super flavorful and as moist as I have ever seen. I gathered the drippings from my foil-lined water bowl and my grandpa helped to make gravy. Here was the unexpected treat-- the gravy was smokey! It was awesome!
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to share from the turkey cook. With it being my first I didn't feel like I could concentrate on both-- also didn't help that I was surrounded by family while all this was going on. I'll do my best to keep things from causing folks from going all TL;DR on me...
Christmas was at my house this year. I got a 21 pound fresh turkey from a local farm. I soaked it in a brine for 24 hours starting Monday night. The brine was a basic one listed on the main portion of the website-- just water/salt/brown sugar. Upon removal from the brine I let the bird 'dry' in my fridge overnight Tuesday.
Wednesday morning rolled around and outside I went to begin the journey. Fired up a chimney of Cowboy Gold lump and dumped it into the WSM. I topped it off with a chimney of unlit and assembled the cooker. After maybe 20 minutes I was holding steady around 325 and loaded up the bird.
I anticipated the temp would drop with the addition of all this meat, but that sucker dropped a solid 50 degrees! After about 30 minutes the WSM was having trouble getting much above 300 degrees, and I started to think I probably should have added two chimneys of lit lump at the start. So, outside I went to fire up another chimney of the stuff. Once it was ready I paused, said a prayer to the BBQ gods, and attempted my first ever hot squat. Thankfully all went well, but boy was I scared about dumping everything, especially with the weight of that 21 pound bird in the cooking section!
Adding the extra lit coal did the trick-- my temps jumped up very quickly and I had no problems keeping it 330-350 the rest of the way. The cook went very smoothly-- my Maverick food probe started to give a reading of 155 after about 3.5 hours, so I started to check the bird every 15 minutes. At 4 hours on the nose I got readings of 160-165 throughout the breast and 170-175 in the thigh. Off came the bird, and into the kitchen for a 40 minute rest.
This turkey's skin wound up being a beautiful golden/brown color and it was just the right amount of crispy. The meat was super flavorful and as moist as I have ever seen. I gathered the drippings from my foil-lined water bowl and my grandpa helped to make gravy. Here was the unexpected treat-- the gravy was smokey! It was awesome!
