Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your Turkey Day is going well. If you don’t have your turkey cooking yet, that might be a problem, but you can read this to procrastinate in the meantime. There are plenty of ways to cook a turkey. Roast it, fry it, spit-roast it, and there are even some recipes for cooking it in the dishwasher. You won’t find those here, but we have some helpful turkey smoking tips and tricks.
Remember that a smaller turkey is best for smoking, but that’s becoming harder to find as turkeys kep getting bigger:
A new record: The supersized American turkey now weighs more than 30 pounds http://t.co/hflHOkuhK1 pic.twitter.com/2k7RLLfv97
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) November 27, 2013
Depending on size, a smoked turkey will take anywhere from four to eight hours in the smoker, so if you’re starting now it will have to wait for dinner.
Using a vertical water smoker with BBQ Tricks:
Aaron Franklin brines and smokes a turkey in an offset smoker, and Stacy Franklin makes garlic mashed potatoes in Part 2:
Injected and smoked on a kettle grill:
On a Big Green Egg:
Brine and smoke with HEB on an offset smoker:
Turkey breasts on a Weber Smoky Mountain
This one uses a cabinet smoker and introduces the “turkey cannon.”
If you still need some tips, the Big Green Egg folks offer this helpful chart of turkey smoking tips:
Now, you’ll need to carve it. Here’s a helpful step-by-step carving tutorial from First We Feast.