Thanksgiving Dress Rehearsal - First Smoked Turkey in the PBC

[Sandpaper]

I volunteered to do the bird for Thanksgiving this year and wanted to do a practice run. So my wife got the neighbors together for a Friendsgiving at our place.

I got a frozen 16.3lb turkey. It had been processed with an 8% solution. I debated whether or not to dry brine and decided to go for it.

After thawing, I dry brined with 8tsp of salt for 14 hours. Rubbed the turkey with olive oil and my own rub:

• 1 part each of: Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Dried Parsley, Dried Thyme, Rosemary Powder, Rubbed Sage
• .5 part white sugar

I probed the breast and the thighs and hung it on the turkey hanger.

I lit using a 15-10-10. When I hung the turkey, I threw a good handful of apple wood chips on.

I placed the thigh probe very badly and the readings were a good 30 degrees higher than the breast probe for the entire cook. At around 2.5 hours, I pulled the thigh probe and just used it to monitor the barrel. From that time on, the probe showed between 290-310.

At the 4 hour mark or so, even though the breast probe was reading 150, I went and checked temp with an instant read. It was showing 160-ish in the breast and 170-ish in the thigh. I pulled the bird and wrapped in a couple layers of foil, then a bath towel and put it in the faux cambro. It ended up resting in there for 3 hours or so and was still hot when I took it out to carve!

The turkey was fantastic! My wife who is very salt-sensitive said that it wasn't too salty. Personally, I think that the dry brine was necessary but I can probably reduce it by about 1/4. It was very moist and smokey. The dark meat was tender, but the breast seemed a tiny bit overdone. Not dry, but the texture wasn't 100%.

Next time, I am going to work on probe placement, check temp a little earlier and pull just shy of 160 in the breast and let carryover in the cambro take it the rest of the way. Great first try.

[jgreen]

Sure looks delicious

[Polarbear777]

Plenty of carryover in the cambro. You can either eat it right away or pull it from the heat earlier if you need to cambro for timing purposes.

[HawkerXP]

Looks great! Legs up or down?

[Sandpaper]

Legs up. I honestly didn't think there was another way to do it with the hanger.

[klflowers]

Beautiful bird.

[Porkies]

Looks very tasty!

[Greygoose]

Nice

[Bobmcgahan]

How crispy was the skin? Looks great. I did a test run about a week ago but on a 12.5 lb bird running around 310 degrees. Turkey was great but I would have preferred the skin to be a little crispier. I’m wondering if a bigger big would allow more cooking time and would enhance the crispiness of the skin.

[Sandpaper]

The skin was tasty and bite-thru, but not remotely crispy after so long in the cambro. I had pretty much written off the skin from the beginning, knowing that it was going to sit for that long. Not sure that the bird size or length of cook will do anything for the skin - my guess is that it's the barrel temp for the last 30 minutes or so plus a short rest that will give you crispy skin. To date, I haven't had any luck at all with crispy skin on anything in the PBC.

[barelfly]

For the skin, if you are dry brining, you could try baking powder to help get a crispier skin. I’ve used this method on wings the last few times I’ve cooked them on the kettle and the Simon turns out well. But, I didn’t hold them in the cambro either. I know that is the other part.

But if you search seriouseats.com they have an article on the process. I dont know if there is one here or not.

But your bird looks amazing! So much, I may have to do a Friendsgiving as well!

[BKYDBBQ]

Looks good, I am cooking a turkey breast today on my PBC..

[RonB]

Great lookin' bird. two suggestions though:

1 - After the temp starts to rise in the breast, move the probe around until you hit the coldest spot. That way there should be no under cooked meat.

2 - I pull poultry at 158* The 7-log10 lethality is instant at that temp. It's only 14 sec at 157*, but I prefer 158* for texture.

[Skip]

Great looking turkey Sandpaper, Thanks for posting. I plan to use my PBC for Thanksgiving too so these are good reads for me.

[barelfly]

That is wonderfully done! Great color and I bet tastes amazing! I need to go get a bird to smoke for a Friendsgiving, you inspired me!

[Mark Williams]

You said you lit using 15-10-10... What is that? Tried to Google it but nada.

[Bobmcgahan]

Go to the PBC sub channel and look for the thread "Light My Fire." It’s essentially a procedure for getting your charcoal lit on the PBC devised and recommended by a long-time member here. fzxdoc

[Mark Williams]

Thanks!

[mountainsmoker]

The biggest thing I see that you did is that you that you took it off 10 degrees to late. I always take my birds which like you are in the 16lb range, at 150-155 for the breast and 160-165.. Once you Cambro it the carry over cooking will take the breast to a nice 165 not the dry 175 you had. I have doing 3-4 turkeys and a lot of breasts for a lot of years and this has always worked for me, no matter what the smoker I have used. Including the PBC. Good luck and good eating.