Stickburner Smoke Turkey

This smoked BBQ recipe is perfect for when you have to cook for family or friends during the holiday season or just when you want to cook a turkey. I'm going to show you how to get the turkey prep and two different methods to cook.

The first step you have to do is thaw out the turkey. Unless you have a friend who is a turkey farmer, you're going to get your turkey frozen from the store. The next step is making a brine. A brine is essentail to keeping the turkey moist since it's poultry and that kind of meat is a dry meat. Making a brine is simple. 1 gallon of water, 1 cup salt and 1 cup sugar. For my brining method, I used different influences and came up with a fruit and herb fusion to give the bird more flavor.

Once the turkey is completely thawed, rinse the turkey in cold water and remove the neck and giblets.(the neck is in the cavity of the bird and the giblets is where the neck was) The first thing I did was take a few sprigs of sage, thyme and rosemary and stuffed the cavity with them. Next I made the brine which consisted of,

1 gallon of apple juice

1 cup hawaiian sea salt

1 cup brown sugar

Next you will need to boil all the ingredients until the sugar and salt have dissolved.

Once the brine is done, let it cool down then add it into a bucket with 1 gallon of cold water. Make sure the brine is cold before you put the turkey in it. If it's still hot, it will start to cook the bird. You may or may not have to add more water to make sure the bird is submerged. The next few things I added to this brine was, 4 oranges I quartered up and squeezed some of the juice out of. The I crushed 10 cloves of garlic and sliced up a handful of ginger. The last thing you do is fill up the rest of the bucket to the top with ice. Save some time and use a bag of ice. You have to keep the inside of the bucket cold so, place it in the coldest part of your home or outside.

When it comes to brining, the rule is 1 hour per pound. My turkey was 16lbs but I let mine go for a little of 20 hours. I doesn't hurt to brine for longer period of time. A 5 gallon bucket is cheap and perfect for brining a turkey because of the large size but, you can use a bag is you want, just make sure the meat is completely submerged in the brine.

After the brining is done, remove the bird from the bucket and take out anything you stuffed the cavity with. Wash all the brine off and pat the bird dry with a paper towel. Now you can use any seasoning you like on the turkey and stuff it with stuffing and tie up the legs. (I've seen cooks use apples or onions to stuff the cavity, it really is up to you what you want to stuff the bird with, or not at all).

For the smoke I went with the offset smoke box with applewood. You need to have the temperature at 350 degrees and depending on the weight of the bird, will determine the cook time. But, the internal temperature for a turkey is 160 degrees in the breast. I used an instant read thermometer and set an alarm to tell me when it reached 160.

So, on that day mother nature decided to rain and I was burning a chunk of wood ever 30 minutes instead of the 45 minutes it take to add in another piece to keep the temp sitting at 350. I got 2 an a half hours of smoke on the bird and went with plan B, the oven.

The oven temperature will need to be the same, 350 but you will have to cover the top of the turkey with foil to keep the top of the bird from getting burnt. So Do like I did and make a tent for it.

Once the breast have reached 160 degrees, take the turkey out and let it sit for a minimum of 30 minutes. You don't want to carve into it to early and lose all that good juice.

The brine method never fails. As you can see, the bird is moist and it was packed with flavor from the brine, seasoning and the wood smoke. This will feed a party and trust me, you will have leftover turkey for sandwiches too.