Practice Run

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Hey All!

I did a practice run for Thanksgiving tonight with my WSM. Tonight was also the first time I fired it up and I have to say, D*mn, it was good stuff! I bought a 4 2/3 pound chicken, coated it with canola oil and a rub made with paprika, kosher salt, cayenne, thyme, Italian seasoning, and black pepper. I stuffed the cavity with an onion, a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme, and an apple which was sprinkled with sugar, cider vinegar, and more cayenne.

I lit a chimney of Kingsford, put the WSM together, and when it hit 375, I put the bird in. With the one chimney, the temp never came above 300, so after about 30 minutes I lit up a half of a chimney, and put it on. After I put the extra half chimney on we were at 350 for the duration. I was kind of surprised that it took about 2.5 hours for the breast to hit 165. I thought that maybe my thermometer was on the fritz. When the buzzer finally went off, I was expecting a hockey puck. I don't know about you, but I've never had a tender/juicy hockey puck that fell off the bone!

Tonight was a great scrimmage for the big game a week from Thursday! And the leftovers are simmering in the stock pot for gravy!

On Thanksgiving I think I'll use two chimneys worth to start with. The skin was a bit rubberey, but I think if I use the 2 chimneys worth and keep the temp around 350 throughout the duration, it will turn out better.

Any critiques from the pros would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Murph!!

Sounds like you got everything exactly right. I always judged by the end results... Also you should try the beer butt chicken...it's easy to do and hard not to come out tasting wonderful.

Welcome to the Forum... good to have another Georgia boy as a participant... Take care and...

CHEERS!!!

Bugg /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
 
I just can't recommend any recipe that calls for cooking poultry for 10 hours. It will spend too much time in the danger zone (40-140*F). Better to cook at 325-350*-- your Butterball is already brined, so a rub is pretty much all the more that you can add.

Re: baby backs. Even if you chose to do low and slow (please don't), I don't think a 14 pounder would fit on the bottom rack, and you definitely don't want poultry juices dripping on anything else.
 
Paul
Butterball's own website says a 14 lb turkey should take 2-3 hours. They have a recipe for 'grilled' turkey. Not quite what you think, but good info....take a look at it anyway.

www.butterball.com

Peter
 
Paul,

I was pleased with the rub that I used. It might be a little hot/salty for your tastes, but I used approximately:

2 parts paprika
1 part kosher salt
1 part garlic powder
1/2 part cayenne
1/2 part thyme
1/2 part Italian Seasoning
1/2 part black pepper

To cool it down, you could probably add some brown sugar to it, but I'm wondering if the sugar might burn and get nasty in the cooker for a few hours.

Even though I'm a newbie, I agree 100% with Doug's post. Aside from the turkey being below 140 for an extended period, the skin on my chicken was kind of rubbery at 300 degrees for 2.5 hours. I would think it would be much less than appetizing at 200 degrees for 10 hours. Look at the post that Keri Cathey made today, and do exactly what she did. That turkey looks so good, I'm drooling all over my monitor!

Good luck!!
 
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