The Ultimate Smoked Turkey
This is no ordinary turkey preparation, pilgrims. Say good-bye to dry, stringy turkey—this will be the best turkey you’ve ever tasted. In fact, hundreds of readers have written to tell me just that. The result will be a magnificent-looking, dark mahogany avian, with incredibly tender and juicy flesh, delicately and elegantly flavored with savory herbs and seductive smoke, and anointed with a gravy that eclipses all others.
There is an added benefit to cooking the bird outdoors: You not only get great flavor, but you also free up the indoor oven for sweet potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and pie. Try it and you’ll be cooking turkey on the grill all year-round.
Choosing Your Turkey
As a rule of thumb, 1 pound raw weight per person will be more than enough. When you subtract bones, giblets, and shrinkage, you will have about ½ pound per person—still more than enough and folks can take home leftovers.
If you need a lot of turkey, it is better to cook two small birds than one giant one. They will cook faster and be more tender and juicy. The bigger the bird, the thicker the breasts and the longer it takes to cook the center of the breasts to proper doneness. By the time they are done, thinner parts are overcooked, and the outer parts of the breasts are dry.
Turkeys that say “basted” or “self-basted” or “enhanced” have been injected with a salt solution and possibly flavor enhancers and tenderizers. Processors are allowed to inject up to 8 percent of the weight of the bird. Even if a bird has had salt and water injected, the law still allows it to be labeled “natural” or “organic.”
“Kosher” birds have been salted on the outside and inside the cavity. You do not want to brine these birds—they will be too salty.
Finding a bird in the supermarket that has not been salted is almost mission impossible. To get one that is not pumped, you may need to special order it, go to a specialty store like Whole Foods, or buy it directly from a farmer.
Surprisingly, fresh turkey may not be the best choice. “Fresh” means, according to USDA, that the bird has not been taken below 26°F by the processor. At that point it can be as hard as a bowling ball. The USDA is allowing marketers to deceive the public.
Sometimes you can buy a truly fresh turkey from a farmer or specialty butcher. Buy a truly fresh turkey only if you are certain it has been killed within a week of the date you will consume it. I would rather have a bird that was flash frozen right after slaughter than an unfrozen bird that has been sitting around in the fridge for a couple of weeks. Proper cooking is far more important than having a “fresh” bird. To thaw a frozen turkey, allow 24 hours in the fridge for every 4 pounds.
Cooking the Perfect Turkey
Do not take risks with Thanksgiving dinner. If you have doubts, practice before the big day. You’re allowed to eat turkey in August or October.
Let the turkey flavor shine. Don’t go crazy with powerful injections and rubs that hide the natural flavor of the bird.
Do not trust the pop-up thermometer. The key to turkey success is to avoid overcooking or undercooking it even the slightest bit. A good digital thermometer is never more important. Remove the turkey from the heat when the breasts hit 160°F—not 170 to 180°F, as many recipes recommend.
Do not put anything in the cavity. When you stuff the bird, heat takes far longer to travel to the center of the stuffing, and in the process, the exterior gets way too hot and the meat becomes overcooked. When you leave the cavity empty, the heat and smoke flavors can enter the cavity, cooking the bird much faster and more evenly. Onions and oranges in the cavity do very little to enhance flavor and just block airflow. To bring flavor, sprinkle the cavity with spices and herbs.
Dry brine. If your turkey has not been salted by the processor, use a dry brine. Don’t waste money making a big bucket of wet brine loaded with apple juice, sugar, and spices that can’t penetrate muscle. But the proper amount of salt is a game changer.
Never put the turkey in a roasting pan. Roasting pans block airflow, and the underside of the bird doesn’t cook properly. Instead, place the turkey above a roasting pan so air can flow all around it, cooking and browning it properly on the underside. (See the illustration on page 252.) On a grill or smoker, putting the drip pan under the grate is perfect.
Do not truss the legs. If you cook the bird whole, do not truss or tie the bird. Let the entire surface brown, even the armpits and crotch, because nobody wants to eat rubbery skin. This will help the thighs and drumsticks cook faster because they need to be cooked to a higher temperature than the breasts.
Cook it at the right temperature. Roast the bird as close to 325°F as your cooker will let you. This crisps the skin.
Do not baste during cooking. Putting drippings on the skin just makes it soft.
Do not Rest or tent with foil. Many recipes tell you to cover the bird with foil when you bring it in. Steam trapped under the foil softens the skin. Resting to redistribute juices is not necessary (see page 7).
Prevent carryover cooking. Remember, meat keeps cooking after you take it out of the heat. Take the bird off and start carving immediately.
Consider butterflying (aka spatchcocking) the bird (as shown on page 295) or cutting it in pieces. This guarantees more delicious brown surfaces and cooks it much faster, producing moister meat. Yes, a Norman Rockwell whole turkey looks cool, but it really isn’t the best way to cook it.
Makes 1 turkey, any size
Takes 1 week to thaw if you have a frozen bird, 12 to 24 hours to dry brine, and 20 minutes to prep. Cooking time depends on the thickness of the thickest piece of meat, the breast, and if it is thoroughly defrosted. Here is a rough guide for how long it will take to get a whole bird to 160°F.
| Pounds | Hours at 325°F |
|---|---|
| 12 to 14 | 2 to 2½ |
| 14 to 18 | 2½ to 3 |
| 18 to 20 | 3 to 3½ |
| 20 to 24 | 3½ to 4 |
| 24 to 30 | 4 to 5 |
- 1 turkey (any size), whole
- Kosher salt
- 3 quarts water or chicken broth
- 1 cup apple juice
- 2 onions, skin on, ends removed, quartered
- 2 carrots, cut into 2-inch lengths
- 1 celery stalk, leaves and all, cut into 2-inch lengths
- 1 tablespoon dried sage leaves, crumbled
- 1 tablespoon dried thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- About ¼ cup Simon & Garfunkel Rub (page 168)
- Cooking oil
1. Prep. The day before cooking, open the bag the bird came in and pour the juices into a pot or large zipper-top bag. If there is a plastic pop-up indicator stuck in the bird, remove and discard it. If the tops of the drumsticks are tied together, cut the tie. Pull the neck and giblets out of the bird. Put everything except the liver in the bag. Freeze the liver for another use—it will not be used for the gravy. Remove the tail and trim the excess skin and fat from around both cavities, front and rear, and put the trimmings in the bag. Lop off the wing tips at the first joint and toss them in the bag. Refrigerate the bag of trimmings.
2. If the turkey has not been salted, sprinkle it with salt, using ½ teaspoon kosher salt per pound of meat, and dry brine it in the refigerator. Brine for 12 to 24 hours if possible. The salt can go right on the skin. Surprisingly, Professor Blonder’s tests have shown that it will penetrate and get into the meat.
3. The day you plan to cook, get out a rectangular pan with at least 3½-quart capacity, preferably stainless steel, ceramic, or CorningWare. It must be large enough to fit under the entire bird and catch the drippings. The pan will get smoky and need serious scrubbing. Don’t use copper because it can react with the salts and acids in the gravy. Beware! A disposable aluminum pan will not hold the rack and a bird on top without collapsing, so if you use a disposable pan, it must go under the grill grate and the bird must go on top of the grate. Put the turkey juices and trimmings, the water, apple juice, onions, carrots, celery, sage, thyme, and bay leaves in the pan.
4. Carefully push the rub under the skin covering the turkey breasts. Spread it out and work it as far down to the thighs and legs as possible. Spread some rub on top of the skin and in the cavity. If there is extra, add it to the gravy pan. Take four pieces of foil about 6 by 6 inches, coat one side of each with oil, and cover the wing tips and the ends of the drumsticks to keep them from burning.
5. Fire up. About 5 hours before your guests are ready to sit down, heat up the smoker or set up the grill for two-zone cooking and try to get the indirect side in the 325°F range.
6. Place the gravy pan below where the bird will go. You can put it under the cooking grates, but make sure they are clean on both sides—you don’t want grease in the gravy. Ideally the grate should sit a few inches above the gravy pan so heat and smoke can travel between them.
7. Put just a little wood on the heat source, perhaps 4 ounces. On a charcoal grill or smoker, you may not need any wood at all. The charcoal will probably give you all the smoke flavor you need.
8. Cook. Place the bird on the grate over the pan and close the lid. If you have a digital leave-in thermometer, insert it in the breast a little past dead center.If the level of the liquid in the drip pan gets below 2 inches, add a quart of boiling water (don’t add cold water, which would cool the cooking chamber). Do not let the solids burn or stick to the pan.
9. As the meat temperature approaches 150°F in the center of the breast, tilt the bird and drain the liquid in the cavity into the gravy. When the meat hits 150°F, remove the bird and set aside for a minute while you carefully remove the gravy pan. Place the bird back on and the dry heat will finish crisping the underside.
10. Strain the gravy through a sieve into a large pot. Discard the solids. Taste it. It should be rich and flavorful. If is thin, bring it to a boil and let it cook down a little to concentrate the flavors while the bird finishes. When it is the concentration you want (rich), use a fat separator (right), large spoon, or basting bulb to remove most of the fat from the surface of the gravy. Add salt to taste. Resist the temptation to thicken this gravy with flour or cornstarch, since the thin gravy will soak into the meat and add more flavor. A thick, starchy gravy sits on top of the meat and doesn’t penetrate.
11. Serve. To lift the hot turkey from the cooker, use Bear Paws (see page 109), or use two spatulas or wooden spoons—just stick the handle of each into the front and rear cavity and lift. Serve your turkey hot and crispy. Don’t tent it and let it rest, so carryover cooking dries it out. Place the bird on a cutting board with channels that can hold the copious juices. Carve, following the instructions on page 312. Place the carved meat on a platter with a lip to contain the juices.