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[H1614]How To Smoked Turkey

by Bill Anderson, Bil

If you've never smoked a turkey before, I urge you to try it. Oven roasted turkey is what most of us have eaten all our lives. Turkey and dressing with gravy is an American tradition and we wouldn't want to change that. Keep the dressing and gravy the same, but let's see if we can liven up that ole turkey!

First step is buying a turkey. Buy a bird that is 13 lbs or less. A large smoked turkey will take too long to get out of the temperature danger zone (40 to 140 degrees F) when using lower smoking temperatures. We prefer Butterball turkeys because the breast meat has been deep basted to increase moisture and flavor. Butterball turkeys that are Fresh, not Frozen, are not basted. So we prefer the frozen ones because of this. Also, a frozen turkey can be bought well ahead of the time needed to cook, not so with fresh turkey.

A frozen turkey needs to be thawed in the refrigerator, not the kitchen sink or counter top. Thawing a 10-13 pound turkey may take up to 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator. Check the temperature setting on your appliance and raise the temp setting if needed, but remember the turkey should always be kept well below 40 degrees to avoid spoiling.

Alright, besides the turkey, you will need a sweet onion, an orange, two red apples, and three stalks of celery. We will also use extra virgin olive oil to help the skin brown and cook evenly. The oil will also act as a binder for the rub applied.

After removing the neck and giblets from the bird, wash with cold water. Then use paper towels to dry the turkey skin. Drying the skin will help the olive oil coat evenly and this will make the smoked turkey's skin more evenly colored when done. Now we can coat the turkey with the olive oil. Rub the olive oil into the skin and make sure to apply some inside the cavity of the bird.

Next we cut up the onion, apples, orange, and celery. Stuff the cavity with these ingredients with as much as you can fit into the turkey. This is not a stuffing that you would want to eat. The purpose of this stuffing is to help add moisture and flavor to the turkey. You could go a step further and pour a can of Coke into the cavity. This adds a unique flavor and can further help in the moisture level of the turkey.

Now it's time to rub the turkey. I used Paula Deen's Spices for my rub. It was 2 teaspoons of each of these seasonings: Butt Massage, Seasoned Salt, and House Seasoning. The 6 teaspoons of seasoning were added to one cup of brown sugar for the finished rub. If you can't find Paula Deen's spices, just use 6 teaspoons your favorite rib or butt rub. The rub is applied first under the skin on the breast. Work your fingers under the skin and then pull it back far enough to coat the breast meat well. Then cover the entire bird with the rub, gently rubbing it into the olive oil on the skin.

You could cook the smoked turkey directly on the smoker's cooking grate, but with any poultry cooked on a smoker or a grill, the fat rendering out can cause some mighty big flare ups. We used a wire rack inside of a large disposable aluminum pan. The pan catches all of the juices cooking from the turkey which can be used to baste the turkey. And the wire rack keeps the bird from sitting in the meat juices. The turkey is placed on the wire rack with the breast side facing up during the entire smoking process.

Most slow cooked barbeque is cooked at 250 degrees F or less. But for smoked turkey we jump the smoker temperature up to 325 degrees F. Cooking at higher temps will help to conserve moisture in the meat and also gets the turkey out of the danger zone more quickly. A 10-13 pound bird should take no more than 4 to 4.5 hours at 325 degrees F. The turkey will be done when the temp in the thigh reaches 180 degrees F. The temp probe should be placed in the thickest part of the thigh, making sure not to touch any bones. Another doneness test is to grab the drumstick and give it a wiggle. If it feels like it will pull loose easily from the body of the turkey, then the bird is probably done. Also check that the meat juices flow clear when piercing the thigh with a fork.

After about an hour of smoking the turkey with a combination of hickory and apple wood, check to see how the skin looks. If any area appears to be getting too brown, covering that area loosely with foil will help to prevent burning. About the two hour mark of cooking, loosely cover the breasts to keep them from cooking faster than the leg and thigh meat. After the three hour mark you can baste the turkey with melted butter every half hour until done. This will help to keep the skin from drying out and make the turkey a more golden brown color.

Now you may be asking why didn't you brine the turkey or at least inject the turkey? I just find with the Butterball turkey you don't have to do all of that to get a great finished product. The turkey will be moist and flavorful without injections and brines. It's real easy to get carried away with flavors on turkey. This recipe keeps it fairly simple and you don't have to start prepping the turkey days before cooking.

One last thing about carving turkey and this applies to all turkey no matter how it is cooked. A cold turkey carves much better than a hot turkey, so it is better to cook the turkey the day before you plan to serve it (this tip came from my wife's mother who is an outstanding cook). Refrigerate it overnight and slice away the next day. The slices can be easily warmed in a foiled pan in the oven.

Tired of the same old traditional Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners that you've had each year since you could walk? It's time to break tradition and do a little something different this year! For your holiday dinner, spice up the feast; smoke a turkey and surprise the crowd!! The folks over for dinner will love it and you'll receive a round of applause for cooking such a scrumptious dish. Once you've heard applause from an overwhelmed audience cheering your smoked turkey, you'll never go back to sticking the bird in the oven again!

For me the task of smoking a turkey begins the day before the big event. Since Thanksgiving is in the fall, there is usually a foot of leaves on my back deck where I cook the bird. With a charcoal smoker, it's not a good idea to strike a match close to an abundance of leaves. It's a wise thing to use your leaf blower and clean up the deck before you begin.

In some areas of the country, instead of bushels of leaves on the deck, you'll have tons of snow. You really don't have to do any porch cleaning. Just brush the snow off of the top of the smoker, throw out the old ashes from last summer and you're ready to go. It is nice to have a little walking around room, so I would clear a suitable area for the grill. Some of you would like to try out the new snow blower I know, but it's really not necessary.

I use one of the tall water smokers; the kind that have two trays. One tray is for charcoal and the other is for water, which helps keep the turkey moist as heat pushes the vapors upward. There are different kinds of smokers, but if you don't have one, you can use a grill by putting the charcoal on one side and directing the smoke toward the other side where you have the turkey. If you use this indirect method of cooking be sure to put a container of water near the coals.

Fire in the hole! Now it's time to light the charcoal, pour the water in the pan, secure the grill tops in place and start cooking. Wait until the coals have a dusting of white ash before you put on the turkey. If you use a liquid charcoal starter, and the coals have not burned down sufficiently, you'll probably get a taste of lighter fluid in your turkey. Don't be impatient!

Smaller turkeys seem to taste better when smoked than larger ones. Smaller ones are more tender. On a safety note, I don't use large turkeys for smoking because they take much longer to reach the proper internal heat of 175 to 180 degrees. Smaller turkeys cook better, faster.

After placing the turkey on the grill, then apply seasoning. Some folks soak their turkey in a brine solution the night before while others coat the inside of the turkey with about one tablespoon of salt. The reason for this is that an unsalted smoked turkey tastes terrible. Yecch! Apply any seasoning you prefer. I use a heavy dusting of lemon pepper, mixing the citrus flavoring with the smoke.

That special aroma of wood smoke is something that is specific to the person smoking the meat. Some folks use hickory, pecan, or fruitwoods in their smokers. Others pour wine in the water pan so that the fumes from the wine will mingle with the smoke, thereby making the turkey more delicious! Try it some time!

I'm partial to hickory, myself. Soak the hickory chips or chunks for at least 30 minutes before you toss them onto the coals. You can even pour the water that you soaked the chips in, in the water bowl to give the smoke an even better aroma of hickory smoke.

To many, cooking on a smoker is a vague and mysterious proposition. Instead of being difficult, it really is quite simple. Noted chefs and smoking experts say to cook the turkey about 30 minutes per pound in the winter when it's cold and about 25 minutes per pound when it's warm. This rule of smoking works if all conditions are perfect; no wind, not rain or no snow. This rule also applies to adding charcoal at the precise time for optimum heat, making sure the water in the pan has not evaporated. These are good instructions, but they have never really worked for me.

To be more accurate, when a meat thermometer placed under the inner thigh reaches 180 degrees, the bird is done. With a 12-14 pound turkey, the average cooking time for me is around 12 hours. I add charcoal every 1-2 hours if I remember to do it at a certain time. I rarely take the meat thermometer out of its holster under 12 hours. When it registers, 180 degrees under the wing, it's ready. Make sure you don't touch the bone with the thermometer, because the bone will be hotter.

Resist the temptation to check on the turkey every hour. Every time you open the top, you lose some of the heat. It doesn't take a genius to smoke a turkey and do it well. Have a little patience and you'll smoke like a champion!

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Bill Anderson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Cooking Tips, Food And Drink and Cooking Tips. . Bill Anderson's top article generates over 4400 views. to your Favourites.

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