I'm attempting my first turkey smoke in preparation for Thanksgiving. I bought a 12lb Butterball (self basting). In reading through the directions on the recipe section I'm a little confused by the lighting instructions.

It says to light a full chimney followed by an unlit chimney. Then it says to wait for ALL coals to be covered in grey ash before adding the smoke wood. Why not just light the 2nd chimney and dump it on and be done with it? Waiting for all the coals to turn grey took forever. I don't understand the point of this.

Normally when I cook ribs I light a full chimney followed by 1/2 an unlit one but I assemble the cooker right away and let the unlit ones catch over time for the longer smoke.

I eventually gave up waiting for all the coals to light and assembled the cooker when about 75% were grey. I hope I didn't screw anything up. Can someone explain the logic here?

For my next smoke on thanksgiving can I just light 2 chimneys and go or is there some purpose to letting the 2nd unlit chimney catch more slowly? I guess I'm a little impatient.

assuming ya have a wsm but this applies to just about any smoke job, look up minion method.

I'm familiar with the minion method. The technique in the whole turkey recipe does not call for the minion method - per se. It calls for lighting a full chimney and pouring onto charcoal grate. Then it calls for another unlit chimney poured onto the lit briquettes. Technically if I were doing minion couldn't I just assemble cooker after I poured the unlit chimney and adjust vents? The method described in the turkey section seems like a hybrid.

If the point is to get all coals lit before cooking why not just use the chimney to light the 2nd batch? This would save a lot of time.

Has more to do with target temp. More lit means you will come up faster. If you are shooting for 300 to 350, then this would probably be correct for a turkey.

Typically ribs are cooked slower (more fat, etc). Turkey is leaner so you cook at a higher temp. Full light on top of full unlit suggests a higher target temp and will bring you up faster than a typical minion would.

Well the directions say full lit then an unlit on top of that. Which is what I did. The temp was holding pretty steady at 300. Is this hight enough for turkey? I wanted to go a bit higher so I wound up lighting another half chimney and adding that. That brought things to 330 or so.

The turkey is cooking pretty fast despite the slightly lower temp. It's at 150 in the breast after 1:45 minutes. It's actually a 10 lb bird not 12 lb.

So let's try this another way; if I want a target temp of 325-350 what is the recommended lighting approach? 2 lit chimneys? Will this last the length of the cook if I light both chimneys? Maybe I should adjust vents slightly closed to keep from burning too quickly.

I still don't understand why, if the goal is to have all coals lit before cooking, the directions call for adding an unlit chimney on top of the lit coals? This would just seem to unnecessarily lengthen the time to get the temp up.

two lit chimneys, all vents open, empty water pan and you should hit and maintain 350....if you want a little higher, prop open door a little.

I think the directions say one unlit over lit, is if you only have one chimney.

Smoked Turkey Rules!!!!

I just re-read the directions. There is no mention of single/multiple chimneys.

Well, here are some pictures (below). It came out pretty good. The breast meat was really tender and juicy. The legs and thighs did not look that appetizing once I cut them loose. The meat looked really reddish and nasty. I was looking forward to trying the tureky leg but it looked kind of gross.

I measured the temp in the breast at 165 and in the thigh around 180 when I removed from the WSM. It took 2 hours on the dot. I let it rest for 30 minutes then sliced. It had a litte pink (from the apple wood chunks) and the family really enjoyed it.

The skin looked nice and brown but tasted sort of rubbery when chewing though it did have nice smoke flavor.

Overall, I guess I'm happy with today's effort. Next time I'll light two full chimneys (I'll buy another one or borrow my friend's) simultaneously. That should get me going much faster.

There seems to be a contradiction in the beginner recipe cooking section for the whole turkey-self basting. At the start, it says you need 9 lbs of coals. I believe that would be one full and one half chimney. Doesn't a full Weber chimney hold about 6 lbs? Then in the fire up your cooker section, it says to use a full chimney of lit and a full chimney of unlit. That would be about 12 lbs. If you look at the pictures, it sure doesn't look like a full chimney of unlit was added. Looks more like a half chimney to me. Just making a comment here. It's the target temp range that is the important thing in the instructions.
Chris A, you're still the man. Don't shoot the messenger please.
Chris C, were you looking in the beginners section, the recipe for whole turkey-self basting?

Dave - Yes! I was looking at the beginner's section on the whole self-basting turkey. I agree the pictures and the text don't tell the same story. Very confusing for a rookie! Still had decent results.

quote:

Originally posted by Christopher_C_ G:
Still had decent results.

Good, that's what counts.

How do others find the skin? I'm wondering if my technique was off or if the skin is supposed to be sort of chewy. Also on the legs, mine looked pretty nasty. Nothing like those yummy ones I see people eating at Disney World caveman style. Any comments/tips?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Christopher_C_ G:
The legs and thighs did not look that appetizing once I cut them loose. The meat looked really reddish and nasty. I was looking forward to trying the tureky leg but it looked kind of gross.

I measured the temp in the breast at 165 and in the thigh around 180 when I removed from the WSM. It took 2 hours on the dot.
/QUOTE]
I'm not a turkey person. Just want to say that up front. The only poultry I do is chicken. However, I'm wondering if your thigh temp was accurate after only two hours. At 180, if accruate, the meat should not have looked nasty. Also, I'm wondering if the breast was 165 if the thigh could have been at 180 since the thigh tends to take longer to cook than the breast and you tied the legs up which would have made the thigh/leg area take even longer. Just some thoughts.
The skin from smoked poultry is typically rubbery or at least not crispy.

I use the maverick wireless meat probe. It has been very accurate to date. The breast meat was cooked to perfection. I did not tie the legs up. I was getting much higher temps in the leg/thigh aread for whatever reason.

On the whole, I'm just confused by the turkey smoke. I was looking forward to trying a leg but it looked very unappetizing. Maybe it was the pinkish smoke color reacting to the dark meat on the leg that made it look sort of gnarly. I'm not really sure what it's supposed to look like but it did not look good. Plus since the skin was really chewy I can't see eating the leg caveman style.

Maybe I'll just do a breast for Thanksgiving. I can't see anyone eating the legs anyway.

Regarding the skin, is it always going to be rubbery? If it comes out like it did the first time I would just remove before I serve it. I don't think it was edible coming off the WSM.

Also, I only used a couple of small apple wood chunks early on in the cook yet the meat had a bit of a smoke ring. I don't want to freak out my relatives (pink turkey meat generally means its undercooked) so should I just use one chunk?

quote:

Originally posted by Christopher_C_ G:
Regarding the skin, is it always going to be rubbery? If it comes out like it did the first time I would just remove before I serve it. I don't think it was edible coming off the WSM.

Also, I only used a couple of small apple wood chunks early on in the cook yet the meat had a bit of a smoke ring. I don't want to freak out my relatives (pink turkey meat generally means its undercooked) so should I just use one chunk?

Lots of people are satisfied to sacrifice the skin, so you wouldn't be the first.
LOL on the pink meat. Maybe you can explain to your guests that the pink outer ring is the sign that the bird was perfectly smoked. It'll only, as you know, be on the edge. It'll still be visible with only one chunk IMO.

So I decided to go with a turkey breast instead of the whole turkey. I figured no one likes the legs anyway. I have about 10 people I'm cooking for but 7 kids, 3 under the age of 11. I couldn't find any breasts over 6lb so I bought 2 of them. I assume there shouldn't be much difference cooking two breasts vs one whole bird?