Thanksgiving Turkey on KK

[Andrew]

Any general advice? In my oven cooks I started the oven at 500 degrees for the

first 30 minutes. This will not work in the KK as the temp goes down too slowly.

Should I just target 300-325 and give it 13-15 minutes a pound (stuffed, 20lb).

Any advice gratefully accepted.

Thank you,

Andrew

[Conodo12]

Re: Thanksgiving Turkey on KK

So you can check out my recent post on fixin' up ol' Tom Turkey for the feast here:

viewtopic.php?f=30&p=36165#p36148

Or, just know that the KK is essentially an outdoor oven. Follow the cooking temps and times but substitute your KK for the oven and you'll have a tasty bird!!

[Loquitur]

Re: Thanksgiving Turkey on KK

My 17.5 lb stuffed turkey last Thanksgiving on the KK took 4 hours 10 min at 325 Stoker. When I removed it, the breast was 158 and the thigh was 168. There is a picture of it somewhere on this forum but I don't know how to post it. It came out fantastic!! I'll be doing a similar bird on Saturday. T Rex is also a turkey stuffer so I'm sure he'll chime in with the cooking times of his turkey.

Susan

[T Rex]

Re: Thanksgiving Turkey on KK

Hey Susan, great to see you back up and running on the Forum. I should mention relative to Andrew's request that I in fact got my KOoking directions from you when I did my turkey and after following your instructions to a T....................... it came out great! Our Canadian Thanksgiving is about a month earlier than in the USA, I did another one and it turned out very nice.........

Andrew, I don't think it is possible to screw this one up, even if you tried. The KK is the most forgiving thing in our house, except for Mrs. T Rex of course...........

T Rex

[Andrew]

Re: Thanksgiving Turkey on KK

My 17.5 lb stuffed turkey last Thanksgiving on the KK took 4 hours 10 min at 325 Stoker. When I removed it' date=' the breast was 158 and the thigh was 168. There is a picture of it somewhere on this forum but I don't know how to post it. It came out fantastic!! I'll be doing a similar bird on Saturday. T Rex is also a turkey stuffer so I'm sure he'll chime in with the cooking times of his turkey.[/quote']

I target less than the recommended 180 thigh too, I think that overcooks

a bird. It probably gets up there after resting under a bunch of beach towels.

I will allow 5 hours, with a planned hour of rest @ 325.

Thanks all.

[Keytickler]

Re: Thanksgiving Turkey on KK

Sorry for the delay here--I've been busy the past week.

I got my KK one year ago, and did my first turkey on it this Thanksgiving. It was a fresh 20 lb. bird I purchased from primemeats.

I brined the turkey overnight this year. I got the recipe from the newspaper (thank you John Kass). The brine recipe is:

1 cup Kosher salt

2 Tablespoons each fresh ground black pepper, dried sage, dried rosemary, dried thyme. Add some cloves.

2 quarts cold apple juice.

Mix the brine ingredients. Put the bird breast down in a brining bag, and pour in the brine. Squeeze out the air from the bag, seal it with a twist tie, and refrigerate overnight. I took the bird out of the brine about an hour before I was ready to cook, to let the skin dry and also let the bird get up to room temperature.

I set up the KK for indirect heat, and let the grill come up to 325 F. A put an aluminum drip pan on the sear grill when the grill was heat soaked and I was ready to cook, added some water, the turkey neck, onions, celery, carrots, and giblets (except liver).

Baste the bird fully before cooking with melted butter. Season with more fresh ground black pepper--don't add any more salt. I stuffed some celery in the body cavity this time.

Put the bird on the grill breast side down above the drip pan, put the probe of the thermometer in the thigh, close the lid and let it cook. I added some apple wood to the fire for smoke when I put the bird on.

I expected a bird this size to take about 4 hours. In fact, by about 2.5 hours the temperature was in the 150s, and I got worried. I opened the KK and put the probe in the other thigh, making sure I didn't touch the bone. The temperature reading on the thermometer dropped almost 10 degrees. I closed the lid and allowed the cooking to finish. When it read 165 I took it off the grill, put it on a platter on a hot tray, covered the bird in foil (breast up now) and let it rest for about an hour. Total cooking time was only about 3 hours! I used the drippings to make a delicous gravy.

It was delicious--great flavor, and very moist. Everyone enjoyed it.

Keytickler