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JimK

JimK

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
Today marks Thanksgiving eve-eve. For those of us who brine, this is when the fun begins. I'm mixing up the apple brine from this site this afternoon and dunking that bird for a 24-30 hour swim. Tomorrow night, it'll come out to dry. Tomorrow will also be pie day, and I'll help the wife with that.
 
Jim your plan and my plan mirror each other, down to the same brine. First time using this brine and am excited about it. First time smoking on Thanksgiving again very excited! Tomorrow is also Pie Day in this house, tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the year. My son who helps me out the least in the kitchen always seems to help me make pies. This year the wife said she wants to help out more on Pie Day.
 
I am also apple brining from the directions on this site(with a little extra garlic) for the first time. I have a 13 LB turkey.

I do have a question.
I am doing it on my 18 WSM and I am debating on whether to cook it in a pan or cook it right on the grate.
I do plan on catching drippings for gravy, I just can't make up my mind where to put the foil pan.
Anyone care to vote?
 
Darn you Fred, you just gave me pause, I am doing a 7 lb bone in breast on the WSM 14 and I am (well was before your message got me thinking) planning to use an empty foiled water pan to catch the drippings. But now I am thinking, a foil pan on the bottom rack and turkey on top rack.
 
Michael Richards said:
Darn you Fred, you just gave me pause, I am doing a 7 lb bone in breast on the WSM 14 and I am (well was before your message got me thinking) planning to use an empty foiled water pan to catch the drippings. But now I am thinking, a foil pan on the bottom rack and turkey on top rack.
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I am doing this exactly for first time with foil pan om bottom grate on my WSM 18.
 
I myself use empty water pan with foiled terra cotta plate on top. I was watching Harry Soo videos and others last night, and I pretty much made up my mind to do foil pan on bottom grate to catch drippings (I might pour in a little chicken broth to water it down and keep it from burning) and turkey on top grate with no pan.
 
Im not going all out this year as it will just be the 3 of us. My daughter requested a ham which i willl do but im thinking of doing a roast duck just to do something a little different. I am already missing having the large group over for the big day.
 
I use an empty, foiled water pan for most WSM cooks.

Regarding the bird/breast, I think the simplest way is in a roasting pan on the top rack. My roasting pan doesn't fit though. So plan B for me would be bird on top rack, empty foil pan on bottom rack. I'm not fond of the disposable foil pans, just because they don't have a smooth bottom - this helps with keeping the bird from swimming if it's in there, but creates a challenge when trying to scrape up the browned bits for gravy. (I have a rack for my roasting pan that keeps the bird off the bottom). I think I might try something a little different this year. Bird on rack in roasting pan on the Performer for an hour or so, just to get that cooked over charcoal flavor. Then pan and bird into the Genesis to finish just because it's easy to lock into a temp.
 
Michael Richards said:
Jim your plan and my plan mirror each other, down to the same brine. First time using this brine and am excited about it. First time smoking on Thanksgiving again very excited! Tomorrow is also Pie Day in this house, tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the year. My son who helps me out the least in the kitchen always seems to help me make pies. This year the wife said she wants to help out more on Pie Day.
Click to expand...
I'm doing the same brine as you and Jim also. We will have to compare notes after the cook. I'll be doing mine on the Camp Chef.
 
JimK said:
I use an empty, foiled water pan for most WSM cooks.

Regarding the bird/breast, I think the simplest way is in a roasting pan on the top rack. My roasting pan doesn't fit though. So plan B for me would be bird on top rack, empty foil pan on bottom rack. I'm not fond of the disposable foil pans, just because they don't have a smooth bottom - this helps with keeping the bird from swimming if it's in there, but creates a challenge when trying to scrape up the browned bits for gravy. (I have a rack for my roasting pan that keeps the bird off the bottom). I think I might try something a little different this year. Bird on rack in roasting pan on the Performer for an hour or so, just to get that cooked over charcoal flavor. Then pan and bird into the Genesis to finish just because it's easy to lock into a temp.
Click to expand...
This is so helpful. I am with you when I do the bird in the over it goes on a nice roster with a rack to keep the bird off the bottom of the pan, so when I do the bone in breast I am going to do it on the top rack. I am going to go foiled water pan, but I am going to add a small foil pan on the bottom rack to catch the drippings.
 
Roasted a few heads of garlic this morning and made mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and thyme a little bit ago. That'll be an "Easy Button" for one of tomorrow's sides.

Methinks there may be some roasted garlic burgers on the Performer this weekend.
 
I don't know about anyone else. But I thought my Apple brined turkey was the best I ever had. One other person also said that today with a lot of other WOWs. It was juicy and mighty flavorful. I don't usually like the dark meat,but i thought this was almost as good as the white meat.
I did smoke it with a drip pan on the lower grate and Turkey on top grate with no pan.
The things I might change when I do it again is maybe a little more smoke. I bought some fruita wood just for this.
I used 1 chunk of cherry one chunk of apple and 2 chunks of peach. I could barely taste the smoke. Maybe the drip pan got in the way of some of the smoke? Iduno.....
I might also use more garlic. While I probably trippled the amount in the recipe I thought it could use more. (I like garlic)
I also really like the taste of the oranges coming through. Harry Soo has a video of cooking a turkey sprinkling it with Tang,and I could see myself trying just a tad of that next time.
The skin was pretty crispy when I took it off the smoker (13 pound turkey cooked in about 2 and1/2 hours hovering at 3 to 350). But by the time the turkey sat till dinner time the skin wasn't really edible. So in my case if the Tang were to be too strong on the skin,it really wouldn't matter much. Because I will probably always have one ready at least a couple hours ahead of time just to make sure everyone isn't waiting.
But the fact is i am now spoiled because here on out this might be the only way I ever cook turkeys till I can't cook turkeys anymore because it was really that good!
 
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