Smoking Turkey advice

The biggest advice I can give is to brine it. Not only will it help explode with flavor but also give a lot of forgiveness. You can overcook it by a large amount and it will still be good.

If you brine it and use a rub, your rub wont need salt.

I feel the wood for the smoke should be light on birds. By that I mean I like hickory and/or fruit woods on a bird and mesquite on red meats but its all very personal and there's all sorts of great woods out there. I also feel the first 3 to 4 hours is good for smoking, the rest is just low and slow heat.

If using charcoal, only use lump charcoal. A turkey or really any bird will pick up anything added or in the environment, even a binding chemical.

As with any BBQ, good temperature is key and keeping it consistent. Fluxuations are bad. I like 225 to 250 fahrenheit. If temps fluxuate too much a turkey will dry out.

Use a good thermometer to read the internal temperature of the bird.

Edit: I just noticed that your husband has a smoker...as the post after mine suggests, it depends on what you use...I have a cast Iron New Braunfels smoker with an offset firebox. In this post, I am referring to my type of smoker and have had good results on a Weber kettle also. Pellet smokers and Brinkman's I have not used.



In the past, I have brined my own turkeys, but this year I cannot find unbrined turkeys...nonetheless, I have had great results smoking a turkey that had been brined by the supplier.
If the label shows a sodium content, do not brine...you risk having a salty bird, but your dog will love you.

For turkey, I bake it on the grill using the indirect method of cooking...I put a foil pan under the turkey and arrange the coals on the sides and maintain a 300-350 degree temperature in the cooking chamber. I use wood chips to get the turkey smoked, and when it starts browning well, I cover the turkey with foil.

Preparing the turkey, I work my fingers under the skin at the bottom of the breast and work a pocket up and around the breast to include the thighs. I then work a lot of herbed butter up between the skin and meat, stuff the bird and put a small piece of foil to cover the opening of the stuffing. Pop up foil sheets are cheaper at the 99cent store.


Once I put the turkey on the grill, I drain the water soaked wood chips and sprinkle them onto the coals, apple chips, oak, cherry, hickory, mesquite all work well....if you have seasoned oak chips available, use them but no bark. I usually do two applications in the cooking process, but one will work fine....you do not want to get it too smokey, a lightly smoked turkey is very good.
At some point if I want to conserve charcoal, I transfer the turkey onto a pan or roaster pan preferably with a meat rack under it to put the turkey above the drippings so that the bottom does not stew in the juices and take in the house and put in the preheated oven. You can roll out sheets of foil, and fashion horseshoe shaped to put in the bottom of the pan if you do not have a meat rack for your pan.

One word of caution...whenever transferring the bird from the grill, to a pan be aware that there is a lot of really hot butter in the cavity, have a table or tray real close when transferring preferably with two silicone mitts and keep your feet clear. Once I did that with sandals on, the cavity broke open, and all the hot butter washed the skin off the top of one foot!  Not rocket science, just common sense that I failed in that day....in that instance I roasted it the entire time on the grill, and the juicy bird fell apart.

I just saw in the other post that you are getting organic turkeys, I am guessing that they are unbrined...if you do a search for turkey brines there are plenty of good ones out there.

Costco has organic turkeys here for $3.00 a pound, but they are brined.



www.fosterfarms.com/fresh-turkey/organic/fresh-organic-turkey/

Dry brine is the way to go. I smoke a turkey on my Weber grill every year. I put a combo of pecan and hickory chips on the coals on the side in an old cast iron sauce pan. Add a few coals as needed. Keep the temperature around 225 or so.

Since I have never used an electric smoker, I Googled up masterbuilt smoker turkey and came across this post. In another article he said that he encountered problems with getting too big of a bird, in this article he has worked it out. A lot of the principles are the same on smoking directions.


mrecipes.com/smoker/poultry/thanksgiving-turkey/

He did say this in the article regarding stuffing:



I have never had that problem with my southwest stuffing, but then again I do not use apples and citrus. I make more stuffing than the bird will hold, so I make a separate casserole dish and make it in the oven... it is a tad drier than the stuffing in the bird, but I combine the two, and it has always turned out very good.

interesting!

A little late but I smoke two birds for Thanksgiving in my Masterbuilt. Brined with apple juice, chicken broth, water and salt for 12 hours. Set the temp to 270 and loaded the 12 lb and 13 lb birds in and smoked with pecan wood. In at 7:45am and out at 12pm. Had the flue set at halfway and filled the pan halfway with apple cider vinegar. It was crazy moist and shot juice when I pulled them out. Nobody used a knife. Tender, moist and full of flavor. Best turkey I have ever made or had.

You'll do well here, buddy. You're among like minded people.