Thanksgivin Favorites

[jmarriott]

I use the smoker for almost 13 years now for the family bird.

Get up at midnight, start the coals, water pan, start the bird on the bottom shelf with 2 pork loin roast on the top shelf. Go to bed then up at 4 am to add coals and wood chips, check the water level and the cooking temp. out the door at 5 am to deer hunt. back about 10:30 or 11 to add more coals. (Wife adds coals and water/wood chips at about 8-9 am.) the bird is about done at noon if the temps has stayed up and we did not buy the 30 pound turkey this year. add the cored apples with butter and brown suger on the top shelf at 11 am and remove the pork loins and maybe the bird. buy 1 pm tthe bird is done and people start arriving about 2 pm. buy about 3 pm the apples on the top shelf at done for a hot finish.

Sounds like a lot of work but it is just 5 minutes checking coal/temp/water levels. that 30 pound bird took some 16 hours to smoke up right cause is was windy and about 13 degrees that year. had a devil of a time getting the temp to stay up.

All i do is the bird and the apples.

[VaRedneck]

about smoking turkeys....

A coupla years ago I wanted to smoke a turkey an the grill...like my dad used to do when I was a kid. I had forgotten pretty much everything he'd done for prep so I went looking on line.

What surprised me was being told to keep the bird under 8lbs or so. It seems that a larger bird stays in the "danger zone" 120*-140* for too long to be deemed safe. Well...I didn't like that, especially since I had already bought a 16lb bird. The fix for this was to "half" the bird.

It worked great. Thing is though...cooking time was also reduced by half. Both halves were done before noon. Since everyone showed up early we all sat down...15 minutes later we lost power. Didn't bother anyone...everything was finished cooking.

The meal...even without power in the house..was a success. Since we couldn't watch the game...we broke out the shotguns and busted clays in the back yard.

Nope the neighbors didn't say boo.