Smoked Poultry Project

Smoking isn't for the faint of heart.  It's not hard, but it's a process (this took us four days).  It takes planning, and time.  We started with one of our turkeys and one of our meat birds from this fall. 

First, the turkey went into a brine in the crock.  I used my two stone weights to keep it submerged.  After brining for about 18 hours, I took it out, rinsed off, and then put it in a pan in the fridge so that the skin could dry off for a day.  While the turkey was in the fridge, I popped the meatie into the crock with the brine for 18 hours.  Then I took it out, dried it off, dumped the brine, and put it in the crock so it could dry out.  Luckily my canning closet in the garage is cold enough that I could put it out there due to lack of space in the fridge.  Finally today, I fired up the smoker and got it up to temp while doing the final preps on the birds.

Now that's a knife!

First I cut the birds in half with my trusty old cleaver.  (The darkness of the blade is due to the high carbon content which means it can really hold an edge.)  Cutting the birds in half allows them to cook more evenly.  I held them upside down and used the knife to cut down the back, and then split the breast.  Then I rubbed them with a wet rub.  Finally, they were popped into the smoker at about 225* with some hickory and pinon needles until the leg joint moved freely.  (I also threw in a couple of heads of garlic toward the end that I'll let stay in the smoker overnight to cool down and take out in the morning.)

 

Turkey Brine

• 3/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 gallon water
• 8 cups ice
• 1 tbs black peppercorns
• 2 tsp allspice berries
• 2 tsp rosemary
• 2 tsp sage
• 2 tsp thyme

 

The Wet Rub

• 2 tbs grapeseed oil
• 2 tbs onion powder
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• 1 tbs paprika
• 2 tsp white granulated sugar
• 1 tsp celery salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp powdered sage
• 1/2 tsp rosemary
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Can you tell which is the turkey and which is the cornish cross?


Here's the finished product!  I only photographed one bird because we'd pretty much eaten half of the other!   I also found out that the nuts and salt have to be smoked at a much lower temperature so that will have to be another day's project.  What have you got smoking?