CHARLIE MCKENNA: Cooking turkey on the Weber kettle
I think really one it shows technique.
The smoked turkey, I think it's the best
turkey you can put out there.
I'm Charlie McKenna from Lillie's Q.
We're really just about real barbecue
cooking from the South.
Thanksgiving is all about family.
Smoking a turkey allows you that time.
It allows your oven to be open to do the sides.
And you'll have more room inside in your kitchen.
But for me it's all about family and hanging out.
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The reason we brine food is because we
want to keep more moisture in the food.
A lot of people overcook their turkeys which make it dry.
This will help that process.
First thing we start with just plain old H2O, nice water.
This one is warm.
As hot of water that comes out of your sink is probably best.
First thing I like to put in is the sugar.
Then we'll dump the salt in.
Right.
Very simple.
Then we'll take our whisk here.
And we're just using the hot water
to melt the salt and sugar.
The next process we'll do is we'll
take the same amount of ice and dump it in.
Now we just have what we call mirepoix, or carrots, celery,
and onion.
We don't saute them.
I like them to go in raw and just kind of impart
their natural flavors to it.
We'll take this turkey, put it breast side down right
to the top of the turkey.
The main thing we're trying to do
is get the breast and the legs brined with the solution.
And it's going to make a nice juicy more moist turkey.
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All right.
So we got our turkey that we brined 24 hours or overnight.
We're going to pull it out of the brine.
What I like to do is just dry it off a little bit.
Obviously you want some moisture,
but the skin's tacky enough to hold the seasoning.
I like to get a decent amount of salt inside the cavity.
That way you can season the bird properly.
My next thing is, I want to truss the bird, which
is basically tied the bird up so it looks nice and pretty.
So I like to take the string and I'll place it below the tail.
I'll pull these two strings up like this
and then I'll wrap them circular around the legs.
And then make an X.
So I'll pull left side to the right and the right side
to the left.
What that does is it gets the string around the legs here
so that I can help truss the bird up.
Then take my left hand and I will run this right
through the thigh down here on the side.
You want to try to get it as low as possible.
So what we'll do is we'll put the string up
in the neck like a U. Wrap it around.
Come back on this side.
And we'll wrap the same way.
Right below the breast above the wing right through the thigh.
Once you get that piece all the way around you now technically
have your two sides.
What we'll do is we'll trim this a little shorter for tying.
And then we'll pull it tight.
And what it does is it pushes the breast up nice and high
and pulls the legs in towards the breast, which
will help protect the bird as we smoke it.
Then all you have to do is tie a normal knot
in the back after you kind of cinch
and get it nice and tight.
And the wing here has a little tip on it.
I like to tuck the wing under the string
and then attach it through that little clip.
That'll hold the wing in, which will help protect
the breast a little bit too.
So you've tucked those wings in.
So the next process is we want to season the turkey.
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What we do is we take the same seasoning, which is a salt,
pepper, garlic blend.
We're going to season the bird.
So I'll season come back first.
I like to use the shaker because it spreads the rub evenly.
Now that I have the back, I'll turn it on its side.
I'll do the same thing.
You're going to want to season it kind of heavy or more
than you probably think.
And the last part you want to do when you season a bird is
always the presentation.
I don't want to season this first, then move it all around.
And then you get scuff marks on the seasoning.
The idea behind seasoning any type piece of meat
is we're trying to get this flavoring down into the meat.
So you need a little bit more than you possibly think.
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Take our nice turkey.
Don't want to mess with it too much.
You want to grab it as little as possible.
Just get our hands under it a little bit.
We'll move that nice and flat.
We'll put that turkey right in the middle.
We got the water in the water pan
to create a little moisture for us.
What we don't want to do is overcrowd the smokers
because you need the airflow around the turkey
to make sure the skin turns nice and brown and nice and smoky.
You want to get the lid on so that you can trap the air
and get the smoke flowing.
We'll get this thing back up to 250 degrees.
And we'll be smoking our turkey.
Now this turkey obviously cooks a little slower than one
in the oven.
An oven cook is 375, 400.
This is going to take about four and half,
five hours for the 12 pound turkey that we have here.
This is our beautiful Thanksgiving turkey
ready for our family to eat.
Take our hot gloves here, we're going to move it
to the cutting board.
One of the reasons that turkeys always dry for a lot of people
is they're overcooking the turkey.
If you feel like the color is getting too dark for you,
you can always cover the turkey in the smoker
with a little aluminum foil to protect the smoke from browning
the skin even more.
How do you know it's done?
If you stuck a thermometer in the side here
it would read 160 degrees.
That allows you to take your turkey out, rest it
so that juices can start to distribute back into the meat
as well as carry over cook a little bit
because there's heat in this bird to right
where it needs to be done.
If you have any questions about how
to smoke your turkey on a Weber Smoky Mountain,
please hit us in the comments below.