Saturday, January 13, 2007
Giving ‘em the bird
I was cleaning up last year’s photographs and remembered I meant to post this one.
The Thanksgiving bird. 22 pounds. Brined overnight in my usual mixture of kosher salt, brown sugar, molasses, leftover coffee, cracked peppercorns and fresh rosemary. Then rinsed off and smoked over mesquite for about 15 hours. Ever since the leftovers ran out about a week after turkey-day the kids have been begging me to make another.
To pre-answer a couple questions:
1) No, the coffee/molasses/etc. does not come through strong at all.
2) The brining is the secret to keeping it moist and wonderful despite the long, slow (~210F degees) cooking time.
3) Cooking times vary quite a bit depending on outdoor temperature and wind cooling the smoker.
4) Next year I think I’ll take the wings off at about 4 or 5 hours—they were the one part that got overwhelminingly smokey and dry.
5) The smoked meat keeps about two weeks in the fridge (and far longer if frozen), far longer than a regular turkey.
6) I doubt we’ll ever bake another “traditional” turkey again.