Happy Thanksgiving

[tony b]

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Here's some shots of today's turkey cook. Turkey was brined overnight Tuesday, went into the fridge to air dry all day Wednesday, cooked today - grill at 375F, breast to 160F, over peach wood.

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[Loquitur]

Re: 2012 Turkey

Beautiful bird there, tonyb!! Here is a shot of mine cooked on yesterday - 18 lbs, brined 12 hrs and air dried in frig 12 hrs, stuffed, cooked over Royal Oak lump with no added smoke wood, 325 Stoker with a blast of heat at the end to 155 breast 170 thigh - about 4 hours. Stuffing was removed after the bird reached temp and placed in the oven to finish. Wish I had more time for brining and air drying but I am traveling Thanksgiving week and can't get my turkey until Friday AM. There is no way tonyb and I are the only people on this board who did a turkey this week on their KK. C'mon - let's see 'em!!! Susan

[EGGARY]

Re: 2013 Turkey

Beautiful bird there, tonyb!! Here is a shot of mine cooked on yesterday - 18 lbs, brined 12 hrs and air dried in frig 12 hrs, stuffed, cooked over Royal Oak lump with no added smoke wood, 325 Stoker with a blast of heat at the end to 155 breast 170 thigh - about 4 hours. Stuffing was removed after the bird reached temp and placed in the oven to finish. Wish I had more time for brining and air drying but I am traveling Thanksgiving week and can't get my turkey until Friday AM.

There is no way tonyb and I are the only people on this board who did a turkey this week on their KK. C'mon - let's see 'em!!!

Susan

Susan,

Nice job on the turkey. What kind of brine did you use ? I like details. I see you use your Stoker a lot. Is it like set it and forget it ? Happy Thanksgiving.

[tony b]

Re: Happy Thanksgiving

I've had my BBQ Guru (DigiQ-II) for quite awhile now and can't imagine doing any kind of low/slow without it. Used it with the Turkey, even though it was a short cook (2.5 hrs) at slightly higher temps (375F), because it was very windy and I was afraid of runaway temps without it. Worked like a Champ, as always.

Brine was a basic - 1 cup kosher salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup candied ginger, 1 Tbl whole black peppercorns, handful of whole green cardamom pods, and 1 gal of water. Placed bird in small picnic cooler, added brine to cover, added 2 cups of ice cubes. Put the cooler in the garage overnight (temps in the mid-upper 30's F. Removed next morning (~14 hours brining), patted dry, put back uncovered in the fridge for another day to dry.

Cooking day - stuffed cavity with one red apple, one yellow onion (both quartered), 2 cloves garlic (smashed), 2 sprigs fresh rosemary, and one sprig fresh tarragon. Outside of the bird was brushed with olive oil and liberal dusting of sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

[Loquitur]

Re: 2012 Turkey

Susan,

Nice job on the turkey. What kind of brine did you use ? I like details. I see you use your Stoker a lot. Is it like set it and forget it ? Happy Thanksgiving.

My brine solution was:

8 qts water

1 c sugar

1 c kosher salt

6 bay leaves

2T coriander seeds

2T black peppercorns

1T fennel seeds

1t mustard seeds

2 onions sliced

6 cloves garlic smashed

1 bunch fresh thyme

This brine caught my eye because its easy and because of the fennel seeds since I use Italian sausage in my stuffing.

I can't say that it gave the turkey any identifiable flavor but it was very juicy and tender. I will definitely use it again as a basic brine though I want to pick up a turkey breast over the winter and do the maple syrup brine.

I use the Stoker for big cooks, long cooks, low temp cooks such as smoking fish and cold weather cooks because my KK is not conveniently located to my kitchen and I get annoyed having to run through my whole house plus go outside to check on it when I'm busy with other inside cooking or whatever else. With the Stoker it takes me about 15 min to light the grill and set everything up and then I monitor it from a small notebook computer that I sit on my kitchen counter or carry around with me which tells me at a glance, over the internet, what the pit temp is and the temp of my three food temp probes or however many I am using for the cook. As long as I don't see any problems, such as the pit temp starting to fall, which means an adjustment to the charcoal is needed, I don't go back outside to the KK at all until the food has reached its final temp. I wouldn't use my KK nearly as much as I do if I didn't have the Stoker due to the convenience factor.

Susan

[lee grabowski]

Re: Happy Thanksgiving

Here is our 12 lb. Turkey. It was brined for 3 days and air dried for 2 days. Cooked at 325 deg. F for 4 hours and used apple wood for smoke for the first 1 -2 hours. I followed the Naked Whiz instructions. Very good turkey.

[Loquitur]

Re: Happy Thanksgiving

Lee: Thanks for posting that gorgeous pic. Your turkey has such a

beautiful color and even finish - did you glaze it? It appears as if

its on the sear grill on the tall handles. If you don't mind me

asking, did you cook it there the whole time? Do you find an

advantage to roasting at that level as opposed to the main

grill level?

Susan

[lee grabowski]

Re: Happy Thanksgiving

Hi Loquitur,

I did cook it on the sear grill only because I have a long straight temperature probe and I couldn't get the probe into the breast with the Turkey on the top grate. After the first hour I also basted the Turkey with butter and apple juice every 20 minutes.

[tony b]

Re: Happy Thanksgiving

Beautiful color on that bird!

[aavkk]

These pics look great and thanks for the details. While we will be traveling this year for Thanksgiving I'll definitely give this a go a few times this Fall.