Smoke-Tastic Thanksgiving Turkey!

In Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October.  I don’t know the historical reasons as to why we are different from our southern friends who celebrate in November, but there you have it.  So last weekend, I decided I’d try doing our turkey on the Big Green Egg instead of the boring oven indoors.  I should mention that I’ve never actually cooked a turkey in my life prior to this.  I’ve been blessed enough (or thankful ;) to always get to eat my Thanksgiving with family at their house.  But there comes a time in a man’s life, that you need to learn how to do it on your own…and the time had come.

So, Kelly and I discussed the plan of attack and essentially I would do the bird, and Kel would look after the sides. We invited some friends over for dinner and all was planned.  Having no experience with how much turkey was needed for 5 adults, I relied on a Google search and discovered a “turkey calculator” which said I’d need an 8 lb turkey.  That seemed way too small so I ordered a 12 lb turkey from The Butchery.

To prepare, I read up on turkey roasting and smoking methods.  I found a couple online and one in my Big Green Egg cookbook.  The recipe/steps that I settled on was written by someone called “Mad Max” and considering my penchant for post-apocalyptic preparations, this one spoke to me. 

So following in Mad Max’s footsteps, I went for a long motorcycle ride the day before (but without the worry of roving gangs trying to run me off the road to steal my gasoline) and then started on the turkey the next morning.  I had heard rumors that the butchers like to leave you some treats inside the bird after they behead and gut it.  My bird didn’t appear to be frozen but on further inspection, it turned out she was still fairly frigid.  For the life of me, I couldn’t spread the legs to get in there and look for the stuff inside.  The bird and I spent about 45 minutes in the kitchen sink under some luke warm water as I washed and worked at opening it up.  My turkey eventually relented and I cleaned her out and then proceeded to coat the bird in an excessive butter/herb mixture.

I set up the grill for indirect heat cooking and added some apple wood chips in the charcoal for additional smoky flavor.  Now, a little Jamie tip that I just made up on the fly…in the water pan underneath the grill level, I poured the water that had been used for soaking my woodchips and then added some chicken broth as well just to create what I like to call ‘flavor-steam’!  I have no idea if it added much, but it smelled good.

I put the turkey on at precisely 2:50pm and following the instructions, I started basting it every 20 minutes.  This was an awesomely stressful part of the day and required my full attention which meant I had to sit on the deck outside, sipping beer, and then wine in the horrible sun and oddly warm weather.  I really wanted to help Kelly with the sides, but the turkey was just too demanding, honestly. ;)

Within an hour the turkey started to brown.  You can see from the pictures the progression to the final browned and outstandingly smoky turkey after the four hours of smoking on the grill at around 300 Fahrenheit.  The inside temperature on the meat was at about 180 at this point.  During this time, Kelly had whipped together mashed potatoes, stuffing, bacon braised green beans and apple butter pumpkin pie complete with homemade whipped cream.  Then together, Kelly and I made the gravy using the remnants from the turkey pan. 

1/3rd of the way done

2/3rds done

Done

Originally we were planning for five adults, but due to a series of conflicting events that occurred, it ended up being Kel and I along with our friend Shawn who thankfully came with enough wine for the original five adults.  The three of us were treated to an outstanding meal, and I was blown away by how you could really taste the smoke flavor in the meat.  Shawn said it was the best turkey he's ever had, which I tend to agree with.  Also, special call out to Kelly, her apple butter pumpkin pie was so very good and an excellent end to the meal.

Thanksgiving dinner!

So to all my American friends, if you are thinking of doing turkey on US Thanksgiving in November, I strongly recommend you do Mad Max’s recipe which he specifically says can be done in the oven if you don’t want to, or don’t have a BBQ/smoker.

Happy Thanksgiving!