This was a prep for the holiday season experiment, and produced simply the best cooked turkey I've ever had, and I'm not given to unquantifiable hyperbole. The breast was juicy, legs divine, skin crackling crisp. It was as good as a chicken! The PBC knocked it out of the park.
The turkey was a frozen 12.5lb store bought cheapo. It had been factory injected / brined. As this was an experiment, I didn't want to spend much money on the meat. I defrosted it and spatchcocked as you would a chicken.
Just a not of caution, spatchcocking a turkey is the same process, but requires much more brute force and ignorance. Careful knives / shears don't slip. Pulling the breast bone is a battle, no way around it.
I let it airdry in the fridge for a few hours, smothered in butter (on top not under the skin) and (over) seasoned with something similar to simon and garfunkel, no salt. For gravy and everything else, I used basically the 'ultimate turkey' principles.
So I did the absolute minimum in preparation.
I inserted the hooks slightly differently. I used two hooks, and went in under the wing and through into the breast, rather than straight through the breast. I wanted the breast to look good, and this would hide the hook marks.
I lit the PBC using the lighter fluid method. Once ready, I tossed in 2 chunks of cherry and one hickory.
I didn't do a good job of evening out the coals at the start, and I think that made for a more erratic cook than normal. The graph shows several spikes where tried to lift the temp as it dropped beneath 250. Note the meat temp was measured in the breast. I took it off at 162 or so, allowing some room for carry over. Just letting the PBC do it's thing would probably have been ok, but the temptation to fiddle is just too great.
Thigh temp was 185 (averaging a range of 183 to 189) and the breast was 163 (averaging a range of 160 to 166). Exactly where you want them to be. I don't know what makes the differential between thigh and breast work so neatly, but it did.
After about 3 hours, this is what it looked like:
And the breast looked like this:
Only a slight smoke ring. However, wonderfully moist - would rival any chicken.
I took a video of the wings tearing off but it was too large to upload. They came straight off, no problem.
I obviously overseasoned, but that is the only change that I would make. Give the spatchcocking a go. It really worked well. I prefer it because it avoids the 'cold cavity' problem, allowing much freer flow for air around the bird, heating it faster and lowering the risk of it drying out.
Hope that helps,
Matt
Comment