Happy Holiday's to all! On christmas eve, I cooked up a 10.67# fresh turkey. Man-o-man was it good! My roomate said it was better than the one cooked on T-day with another cooker. So, here are the details if anyone is interested.
Night before: Mixed up some compound margarine with poultry magic(r), rolled it up and froze it. I like to use margarine over butter because of the oil content in the margarine.
Christmas Eve: filled the hopper with a half bag each of BBQr's Delight 100% cherry and pecan. Topped that off with BBQR's Delight cherry/oak blend. Then I turned the dial to 180, saw the smoke and went inside.
- Got the turkey all ready for seasoning. I took the margarine out of the freezer and sliced it into 1/4" pieces. Then I tucked the pieces under the skin on top of the breast. Next, I rubbed kosher salt all over the outside of the bird, stuffed a quartered orange in the cavity and heading outside with it.
- I placed the bird on the second shelf from the top with the wings facing the back. i inserted a probe into a breast and closed the door. That was at 2:30. At which time, i switched the dial to 275.
-At 4:50 I bumped the cooker up to the next notch (which ran 300). Breast temp at that time was 131.
-The time is now 6:00 and the breast is at 160. So, I took the bird out and let it rest for 20-30 min. while I got everything else ready.
-The color was an amazing golden color and very even all over. When I carved into the breast it literally exploded with juice and butter.
Summary: Extremely good bird! will definately use cherry and pecan together for poultry again. By using the frozen margarine, it kept the breast lower in temp long enough for the thighs to catch up. Both were done at the same time.
Phillip
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