Traveling Turkey!

[Baltimorelger]

I’ve been asked to smoke a turkey for thanksgiving this year. The challenge is that I’ll need to cook it at my house and then bring it over to our friend’s house.

If I time it right, I’ll pull it off the smoker at 3:30/4:00pm, wrap it in foil and let it rest on the drive over. The tentative serving time is 5pm.

Questions to the pit, if I finish earlier or things go long, should I leave it rested in foil out or try and pop it in a warm oven once we arrive. The other question is do I keep it whole or carve and reheat in pieces when we arrive. Any tips welcome!

or do I cook the night before and reheat!?!?!?

[Alan Brice]

The closer you can serve at the pull time, the better your results will be. Curious as to your gear n methods.

[Alan Brice]

MH's e-book has great advice n tips. esp a wine n drippings gravy to moisten as you cut n serve. As you try to keep it hot, you risk drying your creation .

[Sdell]

I would wrap in foil and pop it in a cooler if you have one big enough. It should stay plenty warm.

[wu7y]

What he said⬆️ Wrap it in towel(s) put it in a cooler and it will be plenty warm by the time you want to serve. You will be able to crisp the skin in the oven just before you serve it.

[Thunder77]

I have done this taking a turkey across town to my sisters house. Cook as you normally would. Wrap the bird in foil. Faux Cambro by pre-heating a cooler with hot water, dump the water. Wrap foiled bird in towels and load into pre-heated cooler. Trundle the cooler wherever you are going. Notify your destination to preheat oven to 350 or so if you want to crisp up the skin. Already cooked bird in cambro will be ready to serve. If you want to crispy the skin, pop in the oven for a bit. You can also take the skin off, and crisp it up separately. Then serve on top of the juicy turkey you cooked! I personally would keep it whole, for the presentation, but you can definitely cut it up beforehand.

[Draznnl]

I used to smoke a turkey at home to bring to my sister’s every year. Because there wasn’t room in her kitchen, I would slice it before transport. I’d place the turkey in a disposable aluminum pan and pop that into her oven to warm up upon arrival after adding some gravy for moisture.

[Grillin Dad]

This is what I would do. Transporting a while turkey would be challenging as they're not very stable (will want to roll around). And wrapping it in foil or putting it in a cooler will cause the skin to get flabby. You could stick under a broiler to crisp the skin back up, but by the time you do that, the rest of the bird (especially the breast) will dry out.

So yeah, I vote to cut it up, put it in a wrapped pan, and then warm it up on arrival.

[RlsRls]

HOT gravy fixes all!!