My fourth smoke in the new 045 was a success! Cooked a 14 pounder Thursday morning, the leftovers were gone Friday night. I mixed up a batch of Smokin'O's brine mixture, the holiday mixture I believe, let it soak for 36 hours, put the whole bird on Thursday morning. The bird temp was 33*, the 045's temp was 30*. I wanted to cook it at 225*, figured that I needed it done by noon, so I bumped it up to 275*. I used 4 oz. of hickory with a few hickory chip included. By 11 to 11:30, the probe told me the breast was 170. We took it off, covered with alum foil, took it to Dad's. Started carving about an hour later and there was a little juice in the bottom of the pan that we had it in. Everyone said they'd never eaten a better turkey before. My wife's given me instructions to pick up 3 or 4 turkey's before they're all gone to smoke later. She said that there just weren't enough leftover's leftover!
All of the past comments that I've read on the forum helped alot. I'm pretty sure we'll be having a smoked bird for Christmas too!