Turkey Cook Off Thread

[einrej]

Turkey time 10:am, rain and fifty degrees.
Prepped two birds with butter and Savory Herbs (Garlic, Rosemary, Thyme, and Sage) under the skin.  EVOO and same on the outside. Inside Onion slices, Orange slices and more of the Savory Herbs.



Grandpa's ready



Battle Scares




Fired up the grill and the WSM


Rotisserie started at 11:30, Turkey weight 14 LBS, Temp 325, Cook time 4.25




Smoker  started at 11:45  Turkey weight 11 LBS, Temp 300,  Cook time 4.00



Cooking



Eat me



Plate shot



Both were great. Roti was a little more moist. This was my first Turkey on the WSM. Made them on the grill in the past but it's way more easy on the WSM.

[jcnaz]

I never officially signed up for the cook-off, so I will just make an exhibition entry.

I was on duty at my fire department Tuesday and Wednesday, so I got home from work about 8:00 Thanksgiving morning. We were having an evening dinner at my folk's place, about 30 minutes from the house. My dad had a 21lb. fresh Butterball waiting in his refrigerator. I loaded my 26 OTG, my work table, and a bunch of ancillary junk in my pickup and got started about noon.

I had no opportunity  for time consuming  techniques like brining, drying the skin, etc. Just get the bird out of the bag, spatchcock, and season it. I was working alone, so no pictures of the prep.

Here it is getting started. Emeril's essence and black pepper under, and over the skin; unsalted butter injected into the breasts.
 
Yes, that is a 26" kettle, this bird is HUGE!
A full chimney of Stubb's, a chunk each of apple and cherry.  The Dot said that the grate temp stayed right between 340°-350° . I added lit coals once, about two hours in, and rotated the bird once.

Two hours and 50 minutes later, my Thermopop said 165° in the breast, 180° in the thigh. All done!

[SixZeroFour]

^ did you ride that thing home from the supermarket?!? That's a huge bird!

Very nicely done

[jfbincypress]

Did mine a little different.

Removed skin. Removed both breasts. Put breasts and skin in a cure for 24 hours.

Dried breasts, and sprinkled with unflavored gelatin. Combined breasts and wrapped with skin.

Put on mini-wsm build with kingsford and applewood for 6 hours @ 200-225 until it reached 160 internal temperature.

Refrigerated overnight. Sliced on the meat slicer.

Delicious!






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SixZeroFour]

Some really awesome entries guys!

I hope you don't mind I joined in on the US Thanksgiving fun... I am a total turkey noob and need more practice (this is my 2nd on the kettle) so go easy on me

I'm normally a planner and have everything laid out for cooks well ahead of time... not so much this time around! I started out late and didn't pick up my FROZEN turkey until Wed at about 5pm... hoping to also get some brine time in I knew I was going to really be cutting it close. Thankfully with the help of my 24/7 Turkey Hotline (@Idahawk) He recommended submerging it in real cold water and then changing the water out with new cold water every couple hours until morning. I set my phone alarm and religiously woke up every 2 hours and swapped the water over and sure enough come 7am it was thawed out and ready for the brine!

Bright an early! Already shaping up to be a really nice day:



Here is the turkey dropped into the brine - only oranges, lemon and ginger in there so far:



In the saucepan is Sea Salt, Brown Sugar, Allspice, Bay leaves, Garlic, Onion, Cracked Pepper...



Into the main pot it goes!





Next it goes outside in the deep freeze and bathed for a solid 8 hours:



The Black Pearl gets the call today - normally a smoker cart she also doubles as my roti rig:



Represent!



All set and ready to go along with some Royal Oak Briquettes and some Cherry wood a'la'Hoss



When the bird came out of the brine I strained out all the water leaving me with a good amount of the lemons, limes, garlic, ginger and onion. This was all stuffed into the cavity of the bird along with some fresh rosemary sprigs. Next up it was skewered onto the spit on placed onto the grill but almost immediately my silicon grilling band across the middle of the bird snapped! In a panicked state I took it off and re-tied with butchers twine. Back on and holding in less than 5 min

I wanted to go for crispy so I oiled the living poop out of the skin and seasoned with salt and more cracked pepper. Also stuffed some more rosemary wherever It would hold...



Now here is where I decided to try something a bit different... Last year I did not use the roti and went with a two basket indirect setup with the bird in the middle. This time since I was using the roti I wanted to try to make a super even bed of heat so that all areas would see roughly the same heat. To do this I stole the char ring out of the WSM and placed it over the standard 22" Performer charcoal grate. It actually fits so perfectly it snugs down right over the grate and the friction alone hold it in place

I covered the bottom of the grate completely with a single layer of briquettes, and then dumped a full chimney overtop of that and spread it out evenly. It actually worked out just as planned so that was nice:



Still spinning...



Finally off the grill and ready to come inside... it smells so good!



Here's the final product pre-carving! Not the flawless golden brown some of you lads get but it was nice and crispy nonetheless:



And finally the plated meal - Served up with some candied Yams and Yorkies



I hope you and yours all had a great Thanksgiving and thanks for sharing all the excellent cooks!

Matt

[Saugust]

What a great looking cook, Matt! A few questions for you- with the direct heat, how long did the cook take and did you add any briquets? Also, how did it taste?!?!

[LightningBoldtz]

What a great looking cook, Matt! A few questions for you- with the direct heat, how long did the cook take and did you add any briquets? Also, how did it taste?!?!

I was going to ask the same thing

[SixZeroFour]

@Saugust @LightningBoldtz

The bird was on for almost exactly 2 hours.

When firing it up, I just barely filled the bottom of the ring with the unlit briquettes and then dumped another whole chimney of completely ashed over briquettes over top. Because of my little cooking band mix-up the kettle was left without the lid on for the 4 min it took to re-tie the bird to the spit. This was immediately after dumping on the lit chimney so by the time I came back it was piping hot. Back on the turkey went and temps slowly settled in at about 350 after about 15min. The pics are also a bit deceiving as the bird was not as close to the coals as it appears... No additional briquettes required either.

The turkey was really good but in my opinion I overcooked just a touch. My wife said it was perfect but she is scared to death of undercooked poultry so her opinion may be a touch bias lol. It was super juicy and flavourful and the following morning she used the leftovers to make some killer wide noodle turkey soup. I'm not a huge soup guy but this stuff I would eat 3 meals a day for a week solid if given the opportunity

Next time I'm going to try the same direct technique but with a few tweaks here and there. I'm sold on the roti for sure

[LightningBoldtz]

Yeah Roto turkey on the kettle, there is no other way.  I don't care what the kamado guys say.......

[SixZeroFour]

Yeah Roto turkey on the kettle, there is no other way.  I don't care what the kamado guys say.......

Gasp! Have you finally been assimilated completely into the world of Weber?

[LightningBoldtz]

Yeah Roto turkey on the kettle, there is no other way.  I don't care what the kamado guys say.......

Gasp! Have you finally been assimilated completely into the world of Weber?

Lets not get carried away now.

[Bob BQ]

Very tasty looking cooks. @SixZeroFour I just can't get enough pics of the Black Pearl. Beautiful grill.

On to my cook up. We do our Thanksgiving meal at the in-laws, and my MiL does the traditional, oven roasted bird. This year, however, I had a co-worker ask me to smoke a turkey breast for her family. Having never done turkey on the kettle, I thought it best to pick up a breast of my own for a test spin. The breast was already pumped full of whatever brine solution they put it in, so there was no need for me to do that... didn't want it to be overly salty. I did marinade it for about 6 hours in a nice honey-spice combo that I use on wings. After marinading, it was on to yellow; set up indirect, slightly less than full chimney of Kingsford, and of course used the roti. Not too many pics... I will say that it was definitely a very delicious bird. Very moist, crispy skin, and an excellent flavor! Will definitely be cooking more turkey!






...and there we have it! No pics of the cook up for my co-worker, but she said her family loved it! Might be doing another bird or ham for her Christmas meal. 

Looking forward to pics of other Fella's turkeyday cooks!

[SmokenJoe]

Sorry I've been too busy to join in on the latest cookOFF, I'm seeing some great looking photos of some great & fun cooks.  So just a quick note to share our day ...

We always seem to smoke the turkey at our house on Thanksgiving, sooooo this year (since I found a nice 18.5" WSM recently) I decided to use the WSM (Smokey02) to cook the bird.  I'll just describe the procedure and answer any questions if possible.

Completely washed a fresh 14lb Hen on Wednesday night (I don't care what Meathead says, I like to start clean), thoroughly dried w/ paper towels and then dry brined w/ Kosher Salt & Baking Soda.  Pulled her around 8:00AM and gave her a coat of wet rub (Simon & Garfunkel, of course) and back in the refer.  Put a couple of inverted charcoal baskets on the lower cooking grate and a drip pan on that (a few vegies, etc.).   Filled the ring full of unlit coal, and put 40-50 lit in the center.  When the temp hit 325F or so, I put the turkey on and sat back w/ a Whiskey and Cigar.
At 165F in the breast we pulled her and let her rest (not long though), took a pic, sliced her and sat down to dinner.  As for the total cook time, she went on around 12:30PM and off around 3:30PM, temp ranged from 300-325.  Skin was crackly and brown.  Meat flavorful and moist.  No more L&S turkey's here  





Thanks for watching ...                            SJ

[Jon]

That is one pretty bird.

[austin87]

@jfbincypress does the gelatin help hold the breasts together? What did you put in the 24 hour cure?