I have an 18 lb turkey in the freezer, what is the best way to smoke/cook this thing?

Thaw it.



Seriously, the apple brine recipe on this site is a good one to start from. Turkeys do well in a kettle, in the WSM or on the gasser. (Don't ask. I own all three). I'm doing my bird tomorrow in the kettle and it's in my variant of the apple brine. It's being done by request of my son who's visiting from Arizona. How can you refuse a personal request?


BTW, if you haven't thawed that bird, get one of those Home Depot 5 gal plastic buckets and put the frozen bird in the bucket and bucket in your bathtub. Run cold water over it and it will thaw in a couple of hours.

Good luck.

Moving to Turkey Talk forum.

Regards,
Chris

Dave, did you do your bird for Christmas and how did it turn out?

I have to recommend the orange and sage rub from the Weber site (http://weber.com/bbq/pub/recipe/view.aspx?c=poultry&r=176) for the Apple brined turkey. Turned out great!!

I'm thinking about doing this turkey in the new year, (I ate ham for Christmas)I found that apple brined turkey recipe and it looks relatively easy and good. I think that I will try that one first. If a 12 lb turkey took just over 3 hrs, would I be safe to say that an 18 lb turkey will take 41/2-5 hrs?

Dave

depends. It should, and that's a good target time, but my 19 pounder in the kettle took about 3 hours to hit 161 in the breast today, cooking indirect. These birds have a way of surprising you sometimes.

I have a cooler that I keep for bbq and grilling, and I'll hold meat in that if I need to in order to meet a particular serving time.

Let us know how it turns out. Hopefully Chris will keep this forum up for another 30 days to share the collected wisdom.

We have company coming New Years Eve, maybe I will try it then. I will let you know how I make out.

Made this bird for supper tonight. It turned out GREAT. Nice and juicy, I finished this bird in about 5 1/4 hours. This recipe is a keeper.

Just curious, what was you temp during the cook?

I had a hard time keeping the temp up hot enough. The weather was around 20*F, and the cooker fluctuated around 300-400, I had to add charcoal halfway though, and kept the access door open for a while. After I added the charcoal(some lit some unlit) the cooker maintained the temp fairly well around 350- 365
(The recipe calls for adding 2 chimneys of charcoal at the start, I only added 1 to unlit coals, don't know if this affected the early cook or not)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dave K,

quote:

Originally posted by Dave K:
(The recipe calls for adding 2 chimneys of charcoal at the start, I only added 1 to unlit coals, don't know if this affected the early cook or not)

It probably did. You can differ if you adjust. The next time after adding the lit to the unlit and putting on the middle section (leaving the lid off) give it about 10-15 min to get the unlit going, assemble and all should work out well if you only have 1 charcoal chimney to work with.

Should I also leave the access door open with the lid off, or keep it on?

Dave

I did a turkey breast yesterday. I decided to do it in the kettle indirect with the char baskets and the turkey standing on end like for beer can style.

NOT enough clearance - so I put my stainless 18" grate ON the tops of the baskets and put the turkey on the stand on the grate.

That worked, then I remembered the trick of using the rotis extender. Maybe next time - or maybe not

quote:

Originally posted by Dave K:
Should I also leave the access door open with the lid off, or keep it on?

Dave

Either or, try it with it both ways to see if it gets the unlit lit faster. Prob the best way would be to leave the middle section off for about 10-15 till the unlit really get going. I prefer to put the middle on though so it's one less thing I have to do with a raging fire down below. Hey, that sounds like a Bob Seger song.

Thanks Bryan