Question: What's the difference between a bowling ball and the turkey I cooked for Christmas?<br /><br />Answer: If you had to you could eat a bowling ball.<br /><br />Here's what happened to the 14# turkey I wanted to smoke a little then deep fry. Christmas eve I smoked the bird in my CS to a temp of 125F in the thigh. Took it out, wrapped in foil and refrigerated. Christmas day it was pouring down rain so hard I couldn't deep fry it outdoors so I put it back in the smoker about 12:30pm for a 4pm dinner, the thigh temperature was 39F. By 2:30 the thigh temperature was only 120F. I decided drastic action was needed so I put it in the gas grill, it's a six burner and I lit the two outer burners. About 3:15 the probe of my Polder thermometer quit and I changed probes. By 4:00 the thermometer read 140F. Luckily I had a 20# turkey in the oven that was finished and a ham. My wife says leave the turkey cooking in the grill and we'll eat dinner and use the grilled turkey for leftovers for our 18 guests. By time we finished dinner the turkey in the grill was only at 160F. I left it cook for another hour while we had dessert. By then the thigh temp only read 165F. Being the quick thinker that I am, It dawned on me something was wrong. I whipped out my hand held, instant read, digital thermometer and stuck it in the thigh and watched it climb 175...190...210...225...230F. Harder than a bowling ball. <br /><br />Later that night I stuck the probe in a pan of boiling water and it read 165F. <br /><br />Lesson learned: check your probes early and often.
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