Very strange turkey!


 
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Rita Y

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/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif I know I can count on the generous folks here for some sage advice.....

I injected the turkey with Shake's Honey Brine, which scaled down to 2 tablespoons honey to 16 ounces brine. I used 3 tablespoons sourwood honey hoping to increase the honey flavor in the meat. I added 1/2 stick butter (a good suggestion by Jeff Lowe). I used a total of 12 ounces to inject the bird and I was surprised that I COULDN'T TASTE THE HONEY in the cooked bird, although I could faintly taste the mixed pickling spices.

I made the Texas Sugarless Sprinkle, to which I added granulated onion, celery seed, and allspice and reduced the cayenne by 1/3. I applied it under and on top of the skin and in the cavity (1/4 cup total) and left the bird uncovered overnight in the fridge.

I tied the legs at the ankles, then set it on its VERTICAL STAND IN A 9X5X2" PAN to catch drippings for gravy. (Surprisingly, they weren't too smoky to use.) The (larger) water pan was 2/3 full.

While I was getting the WSM ready, I put the turkey in front of a fan to further dry the skin.

I smoked the turkey @ 250?F (lid) until the breast registered 150? (the thigh probe read 156 - I had trouble placing the thigh probe correctly - all readings were too high). Then I opened all the vents, removed the water pan (Jim's suggestion), and stirred the coals. The lid temp shot up to 352? in 15 minutes - highest I could get it was 359?, although I had plenty of hot coals). I cooked the turkey about 30 minutes (352-359?), until the breast probe read 165? and checked with my Owen Instruments Thermapen, which is very accurate. The breast probe was correct, but the THIGH WAS ONLY AT 135?!

I left it on the WSM another 10 minutes, to a breast reading of 168? and didn't want to chance any higher, so I took it off. The thighs were still in the 135? range, so I cut off the legs and finished them in the oven.

WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH THE LEGS? On my last turkey cook, using the SAME pan and with the ankles tied together, they cooked perfectly. I'm wondering, since the temps are higher in the dome, if it might not be BETTER TO COOK THE TURKEY ON ITS BACK?

Even though the breast meat was at 168?, it was nicely moist.

Injecting makes for a drier skin and a little firmer meat than brining, even if both are uncovered overnight. Next time I'll go with 16 ounces brine.

Jim Minion's suggestion to remove the water pan works great. The skin was fairly crisp, not crackly, but quite edible.

ANY SUGGESTIONS why those legs were so undercooked?

Thanks,
Rita
 
Someone told me to use a propane torch a la Iron Chef to crisp up the skin. I think maybe since you tied up the legs it made the whole package too thick or dense to cook. could be why they didn't get up to temp.
 
Rita
Cooking with a vertical stand the breast take the heat full on so the they finish much quicker. If you were to cook it a horizonal rack laying on it's back then the dark meat takes the heat first evening out cook times.
Jim
 
Jeff, that's funny -- I was thinking of trying to torch the skin but that sounded too desperate! I'm not sure I could have taken the ribbing! /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif /infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif Yes, I agree that I probably shouldn't have tied the legs -- I thought the thighs might protect the breast meat a little.

Jim - Suspicions confirmed. I must have lucked out on the first turkey I did.

Oh well, the turkey stand will work well in the oven, where the heat is more uniform.

Rita
 
I hope I don't upset anyone but a Weber Kettle is very hard to beat for smoking turkey. Cooking the turkey in the center of the grate and having charcoal on both sides, you get good temps for poultry and the thighs are closer to the heat source and finish about the same time as the breasts.
But the main point is that because of the higher heat and closeness to the turkey the skin crisps up. Kettle is tough to beat.
Jim
 
Hi Jim,
Would you suggest smoking that reclining turkey on a rack IN A ROASTING PAN or no roasting pan?
Thanks,
Rita
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jim Minion:
[qb]I hope I don't upset anyone but a Weber Kettle is very hard to beat for smoking turkey. Cooking the turkey in the center of the grate and having charcoal on both sides, you get good temps for poultry and the thighs are closer to the heat source and finish about the same time as the breasts.
But the main point is that because of the higher heat and closeness to the turkey the skin crisps up. Kettle is tough to beat.[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree with that. The kettle gives you well over 400 degree temps for the first 45 minutes or so while the fire is cranked and then settles back into the 325 to 350 degree range for the rest of the afternoon. The battle is in not overcrisping the skin.

I am going to do mine a bit differently on Thursday. I'm going to put it on the spit in my kettle contraption. However, I don't believe that I'm going to use the full thermal barrier. I'm just not sure that there's really much reason to use it. I can get to 350+ degrees with the thermal barrier (maybe to 400), but it takes a good long while to get there after replacing the lid and I think it's preferable to get the heat up fast and keep it up. I can always throttle the fire back with the bottom vents if I'm getting runaway temperatures.

Doing a chicken, I would just spit roast it over the direct coals for an hour to an hour and a half (the spit is about 16 inches above the coals). I don't think the turkey can take the direct heat for 4 hours, so I'll probably just put the 16 inch pizza stone with a foil drip pan between the fire and the bird with the pizza stone really just protecting the drip pan so my drippings don't burn up. That will leave a pretty good 2.5 inch gap all around the circumference for heat to rise (pretty much what you end up with in a standard kettle with the turkey in a roasting pan).

I'll crank the fire for the first half hour/45 minutes and then settle back to the 325-350 degree range while the football game is on.

I'll start without the cheesecloth -- at 16 inches from the fire and with the spit constantly self-basting, I'm not sure that I'll need it. But, I'll have it at the ready if I do.

I really think that a great roast turkey could be done on the WSM. But, I suspect the way to do it is to place the turkey on a rack in a roasting pan, place it on the top grate, and take the water pan out entirely so you can crank the heat for the entire cooking time. If the cooker is maxed out at 300 degrees, you are going to have a hard time doing a turkey. You want the thing to hit 400 if you can and then let it cruise at 325 til the bird is done.
 
You could use a dry waterpan and put the pan for collecting on the botton grate. Should allow for the higher temps and free air movement at the top grate. Worth a try.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jim Minion:
[qb]You could use a dry waterpan and put the pan for collecting on the botton grate. Should allow for the higher temps and free air movement at the top grate. Worth a try.[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

From my limited experimentation with different thermal barriers (i.e. "water pans" in WSM parlance), I have found that the size of air gap around the circumference has a big impact on the temperature range in the cooker. A smaller air gap will put a lower limit on the temperatures at the grate.

In the WSM, the small gap around the water pan is great for low and slow, but I suspect it makes it difficult to achieve high temperatures. Pull the water pan, stoke the fire, and there's no reason a WSM shouldn't get every bit as hot as a Kettle.

Putting the drip pan on the lower grate would work great -- although with no water pan, you might burn up the drippings pretty quickly. A 12 inch pizza stone (or any other small "fireblock") under the drip pan would solve that problem quite handily.

Once I collect my gravy drippings on Thursday, I intend to use the lower grate to put the "extra" pan of stuffing under the bird to heat it up and collect some drippings for flavor! Won't be quite as good as the stuffing in the bird, but it'll be better than heating it in the oven.
 
Hi Webb,

I think that it is actually possible to achieve high temperatures in the WSM. I cooked a turkey on Saturday, and had temperatures in the 350-360 range for the entire cook. I achieved this by starting the WSM using the conventional method and adding charcoal until the ring was full. This brought temperatures into the 300* range. I opened the charcoal access door for a couple of minutes and my temperatures soared to over the max limit for the polder (Over 400F). I was monitoring the temps at the grate level on the lower grate, so it was going pretty good. The temps eventually stabilized at the 357* mark for the rest of the cook, and this was after I shut down two of my vents. I used no water in my pan, and used a turkey sitter with a stick of butter, some sherry and some other spices in the cavity. I cooked it for 2 1/2 hours and it was done! I used a small bird, and it was brined, so that must have shortened my cooking time. The skin was ok, but not roast turkey quality. It was edible and tasted great, but it was just shy of the crispiness that I like. Perhaps the brining process has had some effect on the skin. Anyhow, I hope my temperature info is helpful to this discussion. Happy Qing.

Derek
 
Rita --

Just a short comment on your lack of honey taste with your bird.

I have seen where adding the honey to the brine mixture, before heating to a boil, can
cause the honey to break down. Maybe??

Anyway, I now wait to add the honey until the
brine mixture has cooled.
 
I second that. We had a LONG discussion on Ray's forum about that a while back. It resulted in Shake talking to a chemist at K State. After much super intellectual psycho babble, the result was that the sugars do break down above 160.

My tweaked version of his brine is to use only 1/2 the salt and use 1 full cup of honey AND 1/2 cup of molasses. It gives it a much fuller flavor I think since honey is kind of a 'weak' hard to taste flavor.
 
I wonder if basting the bird with its own fat drippings plays an essential role in crispy skin?

I've always basted mine throughout the cooking process, starting with some butter on the outside of the bird, then basting with fat from the drip pan. I've always had crispy skin. Hard to say whether these are connected, but I would think they are. Basting with fat at relatively high temperatures is going to produce a similar result as sauteeing in hot oil -- a browned crispy exterior.
 
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