A smoked and fried turkey

[feeshrman]

Been thing about doing a combo cook on a turkey during the upcoming holidays. My idea is to inject a turkey, smoke it for a while, then deep fry. Any ideas or suggestions?  A friend told me I should fry it first, then smoke, but that doesn't sound right to me. Anyone done this before?

[Harleysmoker]

I have heard of smoking wings first then deep frying them but not a whole bird. I suppose it would work if you smoked it at 225* for awhile then deep fried to finish.

Just remember the 4 hour 140* rule

[austin87]

I'm really glad you are trying this, I've been thinking about it for a couple of months.

Poultry tends to take on smoke pretty easily so I would think that 1-2 hours of smoke should be plenty to provide really good flavor. When I've fried turkeys I went 3.5 minutes/pound and I recall that 15 pounds was the biggest recommended to deep fry.

If you have an AMNPS or tube smoker from A-maze-N products you could cold smoke the turkey for a couple hours and then put it directly into the deep fryer. From a food safety perspective I wouldn't cold smoke it for more than 2 hours without using nitrites to cure the bird, but 2 hours would keep you in the safe zone.

If you want to hot smoke I would do it at 225 (normally you cook turkey above 300 to crisp the skin but the deep frying will crisp the skin) for 2 hours. Then go into the deep fryer, maybe for 2 minutes per pound but trust your thermometer.