Turkey Reports - 2002

We just finish eating.
I brine a 14 to 15 pd. with your holiday brine added some h.peppers,onion,lemons.put in trash bag in a cooler and with ice and brine for 24 hours.Rub it with mayo and sprinkled it with Cookshake spicey chicken rub and Put in in at 3:00 yesterday the 55 at 200 for a hour and turn it up to 225 and open the door about every 2 hr. to let some steam out pulled it out at 11:00 that night temp. was 175. I foiled it and put in frig. got up and put it back in the smoker still foiled at about 200 and let it heat back up while I made the other dishes.
The family like it and it tasted good for turkey as you can tell I can live with out it.

Happy Turkry Day, 14# range feed bird I put the bird in Smokin holiday brine for 26 hours then put miracle whip on out side then cookshack chicken rub, cooked at 225 for 12 hours with 2 oz of hickery and 2 oz of apple,inter temp was 170 pulled bird and foiled for 45 min taste was great but on the dry side I think it was the range feed bird.I'am happy because this was my first bird in my smokett and was good.

We did a 12.5 pounder. Recipe out of the "Get Smokin'" cook book for a glaze made out of honey, brown sugar, fresh thyme, salt, and fresh ground pepper. Cooked for 12 Hours at 200. Outstanding turkey. I think I may have slightly overcooked, but better over than under Oh yeah, 4 ounces of Mesquite (in the desert southwest, you use mesquite for everything)

Lon

Brined a 22lb turkey for about 12 hours, put some apple wedges inside, sprinkled my own recipe rub on it and put in CS 150 for 4 hour @ 300 degrees. I have to tell you it was the best turkey I have ever tasted, brought it over to a friends house that was having a gathering and mine was eaten before the conventional one was, and it was awesome. Felt bad because everyone was raving over the turkey. One good thing happened is that the manager of the local Home Depot was there and I got a catering of about 250 people for next month.!!!

Thank you smokey for the temp advice earlier. Cookshack turns out just as good a turkey as my WSM, as I cooked about 12 turkeys this past couple days for friends.

Happy Thanksgiving all

First time doing a whole turkey...brined a 12.6 lb bird for 24 hrs using Smokin's Holiday Honey Brine.

Rinsed thoroughly, patted dry and refrigerated for 8 hrs to dry skin out a little.

Coated with mayo, and Poultry Perfect Rub. Covered with butter soaked cheesecloth for first 3hrs of smoke.

Used 4 oz of hickory on a Brinkmann gas-fired smoker, smoked on top rack at an average temp of 234. Put in the smoker at 6 AM, it was done at 12 noon. (very cold here in New England...never got over 18 degrees)

Internal temp of breast was 175 and the thigh was 172. Go figure. Used 3 probes, one to monitor smoker temp, one each in breast and thigh.

This bird came out absolutely perfect, with the exception of the rubbery skin. But from all I read that's normal unless you take extra steps to crisp. Wasn't a big concern here.

The meat was so juicy, and tender..everyone loved it and came back for more. Made a batch of Struttin Sauce to go with it.

For my first time out doing a whole turkey...I was very, very pleased with the outcome and in the process became a huge fan of brining.

A thank-you has to go out to all of you on this board for all the advice and tips, the reason for my success.

This is a great community.

Ken

13.5# fresh zacky farms bird, 24 hrs in smokin holiday brine. preheated the cs 50, cooked @250 for 6 hrs 4.5 oz of apple chunks, skin was almost black cooked to 165 in the breast, 170 in thigh, turned down to 150 for 1hr while other stuff finished Flavor was fabulos thanks to smokin's brine recepie but the breast was dissapointingly dry. would like some comments since this was my first turkey

I tried something a little different this year. I started with a 4 lb boneless turkey breast. The breast was wrapped with netting, so it made a nice ball. I used the High Mountain Jerky "Buckboard Bacon Cure" (http://www.himtnjerky.com). Sprinkled the cure on the turkey, and then rubbed it in for about five minutes, and then sprinkled more onto it. Then I let the turkey hard cure in the refrigerator for two weeks. (After one week, I took it out and turned it over). The effort was started two weeks before thanksgiving, so it would be ready to smoke on thanksgiving day. Took the turkey out of the refrigerator and washed it for 30 minutes in fresh cold water. This is needed for hard cured meat to reduce the saltiness of the final product. I left the turkey out in the kitchen for an hour until it was dry to the touch.

Then I threw cation to the wind and used the "cookshack unsactioned" cold smoking technique of placing a large styraphome cooler with a small hole in the bottom of it on top of the coockshack. I have small wooden dowels pressed all the way through the sryraphome cooler, creating a makeshift grill in the middle of the cooler to hold the meat. The styraphome cooler has a two inch hole in the top to let the smoke out. The styraphome coolers are cheap, so I use them once this way and throw them away. The hole in the bottom is placed over the smoke exhaoust hole on the cookshack. I used two chunks of hickory in the coockshack, and cold smoked for five hours. The temperature in the top part stayed below 90. If the temperature starts creeping up, you can crack the lid a little to let some of the heat out. After five hours, I removed the styraphome cooler from the top of the cookshack, added more wood to the cookshack, and placed the turkey breast inside. In about four hours the turkey was up to an internal temperature of 165. Took it out and it was the best piece of meat I ever tasted. It tasted like the best piece of ham you ever had. Just perfect. I sliced it into thin pieces using a deli slicer and served. Everyone loved it.

Note, if you cold smoke like this you probably void your coockshack warranty, you need to make sure the meat is properly cured, since you are spending hours in the danger temperature zone, and placing stryraphome on top of the cookshack could be considered a fire hazard. With all this said, it does produce the best tasting turkey I ever had.

I was a fist time Turkey Smoker this Tanksgiving. After many e-mails and lots of replys I finally got the ole birds SMOKED!! Needless to say I was terrified I wouldn't do them right!! You see I have had my Cook Shack Smoker for anout 3 years and have successfully smoked Ribs & Brisket many times but NEVER a Turkey. We decided to smoke the bird this year along with another one for a friend. Well, the Tuesday before Turkey Day I got the BOOK out and started reading on how to smoke turkeys. Much to my dismay I couldn't really understand how to do it and if I could smoke two at the same time, how much wood, how many hours for two large birds and had absolutely no idea what brine was and STILL DON'T. (The turkeys I had to smoke weighted 15 pounds each.) Well, by Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I started e-mailing Cook Shack begging for help. I was told how to get on line with Cook Shack and register and start asking anyone who would talk to me in the open forum. I began getting e-mails from Smokin Okie. Thank You Sir!! For the help. I did not use your info to smoke the birds because I did not know what brine was but I am sure I will try it next time. You did assure me I could smoke both of the birds at the same time, how much wood to use and how long I needed to cook them, that is, once you found out how big my smoker was. That info I managed to leave out of my first e-mail to you. What a dunce, guess I just thought you would know, duh. Anyway, here is how I cooked the birds...
After cleaning the birds and drying them I injected them with Butter, lots of it, then I rubbed the out side of the birds with real mayoniase and put a little on the inside of the cavities. Then I put them in the smoker along with 8 oz. if Apple wood. I smoked them for 12 hours. They turned out GREAT! Really moist and juicy. Well... this is my Turkey Report and the end to end all nightmares. What did I learn.........never, never, never wait till the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to find out how to smoke your turkey and especially one for a friend. RIGHT!
Thank You Smokin Okie and Cook Shack for all your help.
MamaD

Well Smokin, you were correct.
"You can do it simple, or you can do it right"...That will be my motto from now on.
11 1/2 lb. Turkey was put in Smokin's Holiday Brine (better than any potpourri the wife has bought)..in a stainless steel stock pot for 12hrs in fridge.
Rinsed 3 times ..patted dry..coat with mayonaise...apply rub.(i used "Dancin Pigs" from the Bar B Q Shop in Memphis)
Smoked with 4oz of hickory @ 225 degrees . Put the bird in at 11pm and took him out at 11am
We ate at 12noon and it was a deep golden brown and moist
Served it with a ham that was in the oven all morning , and also all the fixings
Don't know what you folks are talking about when you say leftovers...lol....didn't have any here.
Poor Tom..we barely knew you!!!!!!

Thanks Smokin


cookin-n-ark

Glad to be of some help. Didn't hear back from you MamaD, so glad it worked.

And if you have more stories of your Turkey experiences, let me know.

I'm working on Turkey 101 now and I produced the photos for it this past week.

Here's the finished turkey in 101:






I also did a Fried Turkey:

We had 1 conventional cooked full bird and 1 8.25 lb breast smoked. Brined for 24 hours + (used Boulevard? brine from posts last year)Smoked with apple,cherry(about 3 oz total)at 225 for just over 4 hours. Wrapped in plastic then foiled, dropped in a cooler and sliced a couple hours later. Perfect. Moist, tasty and leftovers really going fast in sandwiches.