Preparation time: 12 Hours
Cooking time: 6 Hours
Serves: 8-10
A tasty twist on the ol' dry bird
-Mix brine ingredients and stir until salt and honey have absorbed into the mixture (use warm water). Let cool.
-Remove giblet packets from the inside of the turkey.
-Place semi thawed turkeys into a ginormous ziploc bag (the big big blue ones- rinse first). Place the bag into a cooler.
-Add the brine and the bag of ice into the plastic bag with the turkeys.
-Allow the turkey(s) to brine over night 8-12 hours. Do not extend the brine past 12 hours as the meat will become too salty.
-Begin soaking your wood at least an hour before you begin to cook (2-6 hours preferable)
-Remove turkeys from brine
-Start a fire in your smoker with your choice of charcoal. Bring to 225 degrees.
-If you have a water pan, include some of your flavor themes to the water such as apple juice, butter, honey, rub, beer, etc. If you do not have a water pan, use a foil pan below the turkey.
-Inject the creole butter injection into the breasts, the thighs and the legs as well as any other pockets of meat. Tony’s comes with an injection needle, but if you dont have one, most cooking supply places (including Target) have injection devices.
-Rub outside and inside with olive oil, then your poultry rub of choice. Make sure to rub down the inside as well as underneath the skin.
-Add soaked woodchips to coals 20 minutes prior to cooking
-Place turkeys in the smoker
-Baste from the foil pan every 30 minutes and add wood chips as well
-After 1 1/2 hours of smoking place a loose foil tent around the birds to keep in the moisture.
-Place a foil pan underneath the turkeys with some apple juice and injection mixture in it. At this point the turkeys have taken in most of the smoke that they can so the pan will not interrupt the flow of smoke.
-Continue cooking until your internal temp is about 150
-Add honey powder or honey glaze to the outsides of the turkeys and crank the fire temp for the last 30 minutes. IF you do not have a glaze recipe, there are plenty at the Karo website.
-Once your internal temp hits 160, remove turkeys from your smoker and wrap in foil. Reapply glaze.
-Add juices from you drip pan to the foil wrap
-If you are feeling frisky, add more honey glaze and lightly sear with a creme brulle torch to get that honey baked bark on the outside (this is a really nice finisher).
-Let the turkeys sit in foil for one hour (loosely wrapped) to cool.
-Slice and serve with juices from the drip pan. If you can get away with not placing the whole turkey on the table you may want to carve as follows:
Enjoy!