Smokin' a Turkey by Ben

Well, you know what they say... and my solution to that is to use really wide rolling papers.

My dad came down the other weekend and so we did a little smoked turkey, which handily served as practice for Turkey-day. Marion did the brine, which despite what you might have heard, did just fine over 36 h (which we did mostly out of necessity versus a real decision of 24 v. 36 h, with no consideration for Alton Brown's <12 h). The recipe for the brine can be found here.

In case you can't tell, the turkey is attempting the chicken dance, and Marion wasn't sure at the time how to make it clap. The tail was lost when the bird was still frozen and I was removing its innards.

We took the 12 lb bird out in the morning and rinsed it and put it in the fridge to dry (in a cauldron in a stock pot). For the cooking, I went for a high temp method, basically following these directions on the virtual webber buller site. I went for 2.5 chimney loads, with one lit on the bottom, then placing the unlit on top. When the coals were all lit, I added one chunk of hickory and two foil wrapped applewood chips (there is a ton of talk on chips and soaking, and I would agree that soaking chips doesn't give the right smoke and soaking a chunk is meaningless). When I do this for real, I am getting my hand on some applewood chunks so I don't have to toss in a handful every 30 minutes (which kind of messes with the temp too as they flare up).

The temp log is below, and you will notice it doesn't line up with the temp log on the afore mentioned directions. I chalk this up to just going with it and basing it on the meat temp, but also the author was using a ~14 lb bird.

Time	Lid Temp	Meat Temp	Vent 1	Vent 2	Vent 3
2:50	410°	55°	50	50	50
3:05	320°	61°	50	50	50
3:20	290°	82°	->100	->100	50
3:35	300°	97°	100	100	50
3:50	320°	122°	100	100	50
4:15	330°	141°	->50	100	50
4:35	320°	158°	50	50	50
4:50	320°	163°	50	50	50
5:00	295°	168°	0	0	0

I left the bird on for 15 minutes, but realized it really needed to come off (and could have come off at 4:50). We took some temps and when it came off the thighs were at ~175° and the breasts at ~165°. Using the rule of thumb below (from VWB):

Roast the turkey at 325-350°F until it reaches 160-165°F in the breast and 170-175°F in the thigh, about 2-1/2 to 3 hours for a 12-14 pound turkey. 

I would say it was done, and we left it slightly covered in foil (not to ruin the skin) for about an hour waiting for sides to finish. By the time it got carved, it was still so juicy you had to be careful to keep your mouth completely closed when chewing. The applewood smoke was perfect and overall, it turned out well.