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Step 6Prepare the turkey
The rule of thumb for turkey smoking is 30-40 minutes per pound, so you should probably get a relatively small turkey unless you are prepared to get up early and eat late. We opted for a 13 pounder, and it took approximately 10 hours to get the thigh meat up above 165 degrees.
We brined our turkey before smoking it. This is optional, but we strongly recommend it; the primary purpose of brining is to make the turkey juicier, and smoking a turkey for 10 hours tends to dry it out a little more than some other cooking techniques. We used a brine consisting of 2 gallons of water, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of salt. This was just enough brine to cover the turkey in its 5 gallon paint bucket. We brined the bird overnight, for about 9 hours.
Because the cooking in a smoker is done by convective heat transfer from the smoke, we wanted to maximize smoke flow through the turkey in order to minimize cooking time and to cook the bird as evenly as possible. To improve the gas flow dynamics of the turkey's surface, we removed the excess flaps of skin and fat that obscured the openings of the turkey, and we widened the passage between the neck cavity and the main body cavity, the idea being to allow the smoke to flow freely through the interior of the bird. We also left the turkey entirely untrussed, and as spread out as possible, to increase its effective surface area.
We didn't even consider stuffing the turkey, as this would have destroyed smoke flow, added several hours to cooking time, exacerbated cooking unevenness in different parts of the turkey, and, in all likelihood, produced acrid black stuffing. We cooked our stuffing in the oven instead.
Then, we rubbed the outside of the turkey down with olive oil and salt in an attempt to keep the skin from drying out.
We brined our turkey before smoking it. This is optional, but we strongly recommend it; the primary purpose of brining is to make the turkey juicier, and smoking a turkey for 10 hours tends to dry it out a little more than some other cooking techniques. We used a brine consisting of 2 gallons of water, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of salt. This was just enough brine to cover the turkey in its 5 gallon paint bucket. We brined the bird overnight, for about 9 hours.
Because the cooking in a smoker is done by convective heat transfer from the smoke, we wanted to maximize smoke flow through the turkey in order to minimize cooking time and to cook the bird as evenly as possible. To improve the gas flow dynamics of the turkey's surface, we removed the excess flaps of skin and fat that obscured the openings of the turkey, and we widened the passage between the neck cavity and the main body cavity, the idea being to allow the smoke to flow freely through the interior of the bird. We also left the turkey entirely untrussed, and as spread out as possible, to increase its effective surface area.
We didn't even consider stuffing the turkey, as this would have destroyed smoke flow, added several hours to cooking time, exacerbated cooking unevenness in different parts of the turkey, and, in all likelihood, produced acrid black stuffing. We cooked our stuffing in the oven instead.
Then, we rubbed the outside of the turkey down with olive oil and salt in an attempt to keep the skin from drying out.
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