Smoking Turkeys

[Chuck52]

Bird,

I'm not sure when I'll do my turkey because it looks like the Thanksgiving schedule will be "interesting" this year. However, I may try the brining thing overnight, simply because that sounds like a good way to thaw the bird! Then I'll be smoking with apple, crab apple and Bradford pear wood. Those are pretty mild, so I'll use a pretty good amount. The electric version of the smoker has only a small pan for wood chips, and it doesn't get hot enough to really generate any smoke, so I put the chunks right on the heating element. The only problem I have with the smoker is clean up afterwards. The water pan doesn't catch even a reasonable part of the drippings, and when they hit the wood ashes on the bottom of the smoker it makes a real mess that's hard to clean up. If the bird will fit on the second rack I may try putting a larger drip pan under it on the bottom rack. If that works for the bird, OK, but I really like to fill the smoker racks when I smoke ribs. Even if I line the bottom with aluminum foil I'll still have the ashes on the heating element. Ah well, at least what comes out has all tasted good so far.

Chuck

[Bird]

Chuck, I think they're all a mess to clean up. The water pan in my smoker doesn't catch nearly all the drippings either. We have a gas (LPG) grill and the gas (LPG) smoker and both of them are on the wooden deck in the breezeway. Walmart has some oil drip pans actually made to put under the engine of your car to catch any oil to keep your garage floor clean. They're about 2' x 4' by a half inch deep and cost about $10 each. I have one under the grill, just barely fits, and one under the smoker with plenty of room for the propane bottle, too.

I just got back from Walmart where I bought another bag of mesquite chips and they were out of hickory. But I also bought a bag of Jack Daniels "grilling pellets for smoke flavor" that will supposedly smoke for 30 minutes and are made from the oak barrels they age the whiskey in. I've not tried them before, so we'll see how they do.

[Pat]

Bird, The current nightly charge for a standard spot at the RV park is $32 summer or winter.

Their web site certainly lists lots of plush features. It would be with the $ if you use/need many of the features.

Pat

[BobInMN]

Bird, if you wouldn't mind I'd like to have the recipe for the brine and how long to leave the bird in it. Thanks in advnace!

[egon]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Bird, if you wouldn't mind I'd like to have the recipe for the brine and how long to leave the bird in it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh dear: Bird in Brine!! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Bird]

Interesting timing for this post. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] I did not brine the turkey I recently smoked. However, I thought I'd try it on the one I'm going to do Thanksgiving. And this morning the Dallas Morning News has this story about preparing the turkey. She says to mix 1/2 cup of salt and 1/4 cup of sugar per gallon and soak the bird overnight. But then says if you bought something like a butterball or honeysuckle turkey; i.e., the more expensive instead the cheaper ones, you don't need to do that. [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Bird]

I guess I forgot to come back and tell about smoking the turkey that I DID brine. It was an interesting experiment. The turkey was very good and very tasty, but that was after I pulled the skin off and then carved the turkey. I tried slicing off a small piece of the breast and sampled it; skin and all. I'm not sure the dog could have chewed that skin, although it might have make good shoe leather. But I guess that's OK, since the meat under the skin was good.

HOWEVER, this past Saturday, I got a gift package from the New Braunfels Smokehouse that included a smoked turkey breast. I'm sorry to say those folks do a much better job than I do [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] ; more evenly smoked all the way through and delicious.

[Chuck52]

Bird,

I did brine the turkey I smoked for Thanksgiving. Fortunately it was cold enough that my laundry room, which is unheated, was cool enough that I didn't have to fit the big pan with the brine and bird in the refrigerator....which was full of the other Thanksgiving stuff. I let it set overnight. I smoked it for six hours and 220-230 degrees, but I bet it was done well before that time, because it was well done then. It came out very good. There wasn't much more than one leg left, and that as with enough other food to feed Coxie's Army, as my mother used to say.

BTW, I found a really good recipe for left-over turkey in Southern Living mag. It uses the smoked turkey to flavor greens. You cook the greeens with some sauteed onions and garlic and chopped turkey, and then flavor them with vinegar and, of ll things, a little maple syrup. The maple syrup may sound weird, but you end up with a nice smoky flavored sweet-and-sour greens. Very good.

Chuck

[Bird]

Yep, Chuck, the maple syrup does sound odd, although the rest of that recipe sure sounds good.

And when you say, flavor them with vingar . . . well, I've used plain vinegar, but I nearly always flavor my greens on the plate with a teaspoon or so of "pickle juice"; i.e., the vingar from the pickle jar, and I don't care whether it's dill pickles or sweet pickles, either one's good.

[Chuck52]

Bird,

I usually just hit mine with a dose of vinegar, but I have tried balsamic vinegar before, and that gives them a kind of sweet and sour tang, too. The maple syrup in that recipe seems to just accentuate the smoky taste of the smoked turkey, without really tasting of maple much. I'm planning on doing it again with smoked sausage. That would be basically a one pot meal for me and the wife. Our youngest moved out a couple of months ago, so now we don't have to please any tastes but our own!

Chuck