Smoked whole Turkey

Difficulty: Easy

Prep Time: 30 minutes at the most

Cook Time: Estimate 20-30 minutes per pound.  Mine was about 13 1/2 lbs and took around 4 hours and 15 minutes

Smoker Temp: 275-300

Meat Finish Temp: 165 in the thickest part of the breast and 175-180 in the thigh

For this cook I tried the Meat Church Bird Bath poultry brine.  You need to thoroughly rinse off the turkey and remove the neck and giblets if they were included.  For a turkey this size, you mix the entire contents of the bag with 1 gallon of water.  If that doesn't fully submerge the turkey, just add more water until it does.  I did the brine overnight for around 16 hours in a Yeti loadout bucket.  The loadout bucket is a 5 gallon food safe container that you can also purchase a lid for.

Brine and Rub used on this cook

Yeti Loadout bucket

Turkey placed in the brine

The next day while the grill was coming up to temperature, I removed the Turkey from the brine and then patted the skin dry with paper towels.  I went with Meat Church Honey Hog for my rub.  I stuffed the cavity with some sliced apples, onions, and celery.

Once the smoker was holding my temperature range, I threw the turkey on with an aluminum pan underneath to catch the drippings.  I sprayed the outside about every hour with Canola cooking spray to try and keep it from drying out.  Monitor your internal temps and when you hit 165 in the breast and 175-180 in the thigh you are done.  Let the turkey rest for at least 15-30 minutes after you remove it from the smoker before caving.

This was about 2 hours in.

Final product

Products used in this cook: