Thanksgiving Turkey Project - Day 3

Today we'll cook the bird.

It comes out of the refrigerator; having brined it and loosened the skin it looks very different than when I opened the package a couple of days ago. It's definitely a little dry on the outside which should mean some nice crispy skin at the end of the day. I got a little too zealous separating the skin on one side and split it. That's why I'm doing a development run this weekend; I'm learning not to be so rough.

Out of the refrigerator; ready for the wet rub and cooking

I split the skin here last night when trying to loosen it; ugh.

 I take the turkey gravy base I simmered yesterday and placed it in the roasting pan. It will collect the turkey drippings during the cook.

Turkey "soup" gravy base on the cooker while it warms us.

 I place a rack over the roasting pan to keep the turkey up high where the hot air can get all around it. I really like this idea; it's one of the reasons I picked this recipe to try. An additional smoker probe is stuck through a bit of potato in the foreground.
I've got that split side facing forward because the front is a little cooler than the back on my cooker.

Turkey on the rack over the turkey gravy base.

I turned the smoker on to "smoke" for 40 minutes then 325* until the breast reaches an internal temperature of 160.

At 11:15, after an hour and 40 minutes, I removed the foil from the legs and wings. The internal temp of the breast is 84 so we are 1/2 way there.
It's finally starting to look like something edible.

1:40 into the cook

Another view point showing the gravy base on the bottom

I checked the water level again at 12:15; about 2:40 into the cook. The smoker is running around 315* the breast is at 120.

Looking good

At 1:40, 4 hours after starting, the probe registered 160 but checking with the Thermapen revealed a cooler spot so I adjusted the probe and let 'er go until 2:00. Out it came

Done

The other side

Pan drippings. Looks a little gross but it's good stuff

While carving I realized once again I need to practice this art. Having loosened the skin so much resulted in it just peeling off. I didn't get the legs out as easily as I expected. Maybe it wasn't cooked enough down there; there was a touch of pink on the bottom. The breast wanted to shred like pulled pork and had a nice smoke ring to it. I think next time I'll cook a smaller turkey (maybe 16 pounds) at a little higher temp, maybe 345.

Carved and ready to serve.

I had plenty of drippings so I made two kinds of gravy. One was just the strained and defatted jus'. The other I made a roux of 3 Tablespoons flour and 3 Tablespoons turkey fat, then added two cups of defatted drippins.

After messing with it for 3 days I barely tasted it. I'll have some for lunch to see what I think. Jeff came over for dinner and said it was the best turkey he's ever had. So, I'll take that as a vote of confidence. I'll post a follow-up after I reflect on it for a bit.

We finished just in time to go to the neighborhood block party; a real fun event. Having lived here 10 years now we've developed some nice friendships with our neighbors. This is a great time to hang out and chat at the end of every summer.

And the highlight is the fire truck comes for a quick display. I was leaving for a church meeting as it rolled in but I got a quick snap.

Local Engine 66 at our block party

They didn't stay long; what with today being so hot and the 10th anniversary of 9-11 they were pretty busy.


Links to other pages of the project

• The Plan
• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Cooking Log

The Thanksgiving Turkey Project - Day 2

Today we are brining the turkey and prepping the gravy.

Brining the turkey
As I suspected last night, I used way to much salt. I'm going to post a comment on Meathead's "Amazing Ribs" site to get his take on my problem.

The brine sat out overnight to cool in preparation for adding more water and the turkey.  Even after taking out over a cup of undissolved salt last night, there was more settled at the bottom this morning.

Still more undissolved salt in the brine.

With Carla's help we poured the brine through a fine mesh strainer into the brining bucket and captured a lot of the undissolved solids. Unfortunately, a good bit of the pepper got caught up in it.

By this time I was wondering if I picked a good recipe; well no where to go but forward since this is still the development stage of the project. Hopefully, I can learn from my mistakes.

The turkey looked good. I poured the liquids into a container,  removed the neck, trimmed some of the skin and added it all to a pot for cooking with the gravy.

A nice looking turkey

I added cold water to the brine, then 3 1/2 gallons of ice and plunked the turkey in. I weighed it down with a 1 gallon milk jug filled with ice. The temp measured in the high 20's. It should be hold for a while. I'll check after lunch and replace the jug with another if needed.

Turkey in the brine

On to the gravy. I added 3 quarts of water, 1 cup of apple juice, a couple of onions and carrots along with a bit of thyme and sage. Carla cut the carrots up for snacks last night not realizing I needed them today. I'll use much bigger chunks of carrots next time

Gravy fixin's 

Add the water and vegetables to the pot with the turkey parts for  a 15 minute simmer

Simmering the turkey bits, water, apple juice, and vegetables

Okay, that's more like it. It's starting to smell like Thanksgiving. The turkey neck and other bits released their fat and juices. This looks real promising.

After a bit it goes into the refrigerator; we'll use it tomorrow

Gravy fixin's in the fridge waiting for tomorrow

 I didn't get to grill much in August because we were gone so much. I wasn't sure what state I left it in so figured I'd better check in case it needed cleaning. Nope; sparkling clean!

The grill is ready for tomorrow

Clean burn pot; no ash!

This evening I'll take the turkey out of the brine and set it in the refrigerator overnight to dry out. This is to ensure nice crispy skin.

At 5:00 I made some herb infused garlic oil for the rub tomorrow. I mixed some fresh sage and thyme with 1/2 cup olive oil. That will sit overnight for the flavors to meld

Olive oil with sage and thyme

I wanted to get 12 hours of brining but that wasn't in the cards. It went into the brine at 9:00 and we are going over to friends for dinner; Meathead says not to go over 12 hours of brining so took it out at 5. Eight hours of brine is better then none. It looks a bit darker than it did going in, so it gone some benefit.

I put it on a rack in my rubber/plastic tray so it would get a bit of air flow and have a place for the juices to flow. I then stuck my hand under the skin to loosen the skin from the muscle. It worked well on the breast, but when I tried to do the back side I split the skin.

Drying in the refrigerator after a day of brining

Links to other pages of the project

• The Plan
• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Cooking Log

The Thanksgiving Turkey Project - Prep

Introduction
I'm cooking a turkey on my smoker for Thanksgiving this year. This continuing blog post will track my practice. If you, like me, have wanted to cook a turkey on a grill, I invite you to follow along and learn from my successes and trials.

Lots of people I know have smoked or otherwise cooked turkeys on their grills for Thanksgiving. I never have; when I bought the Mak 2 Star General last winter I planned on changing that. So, I've been pondering and thinking about how to do it. We normally have a load of folks over for the day and I'm not a fan of cooking things for the first time for anyone, much less a big party on a big day where the primary symbol of the day is that big hunk 'o bird.

I knew I'd want to practice and planning ahead last month, this was to be the weekend. Of course it turns out to be the hottest weekend of the year. But, I ordered the turkey earlier in the week and I'm going to go through with it.

The Plan
I've been a fan of Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn and his amazingribs.com site. When I wanted to produce killer ribs, I used his Last Meal Ribs recipe to great effect. So, it was normal to use his turkey recipe for this meal. The basis for the cook can be found here. Refer to that recipe for details on  the measurements and what-not  I'm going to start from this and make adjustments from there.

His recipe calls for 3 main steps: Preparing a brine, preparing the gravy, cooking the bird. The brining, , prepping, and cooking takes a couple of days. Here is a quick chart of the plan.

This looks like a mini go-live plan for a project at work.

Given that the turkey needs to defrost for a few days, this will be a 5 day process.

Tuesday/Wednesday


Procuring a turkey
If I'm going to cook a turkey, I'd have to find a turkey. As you might suspect this is not an easy thing to do in late August, early September. On Tuesday morning I called my butcher at New Season's Market and asked if they had a 15  - 16 lb bird. I want a pretty straightforward bird; not kosher, not injected, just plain turkey. The butcher said they had two turkeys in the freezer 17 1/2 lbs and 18 1/2 lbs. Bigger than I wanted, but a 15 pounder would be a special order that would take a week to deliver. I asked him to hold the smaller bird for me; he warned me that it was frozen solid. He took it out of the freezer and put it in the walk-in cooler for me and I came by to pick it up Wednesday evening after work.

He wasn't lyin'; this was one big frozen bird. Leaving it in the wrapping I put the turkey in a tray in the bottom shelf of the garage refrigerator.

The frozen turkey Wednesday night

Thursday night it was still a big ball of ice, so I took it out of the fridge and put it under running cold water for an hour. Improvement.

Under cold running water for an hour

Friday night I got home and I could still feel firmness and ice crystals, so I  put it under running cold water for another hour and a half.

Using the pan in the bathtub is great; it gets to stay in cold water that way

Now it's ready. It's back in the refrigerator while I prepare the brine. Where am I going to brine a 17 pound turkey? I asked myself that very question a few years ago. I may have got the idea from Alton Brown, I'm not sure; but using a 5 gallon athletic drink container is perfect. It's been sitting out in the shed for a few years so it needed some cleaning.

The brining receptacle. The turkey will fit perfectly in the bottom

Friday Night
Preparing the brine
This brine calls for dissolving 7 cups of pickling salt and 2 cups of brown sugar in a gallon of water. Later we'll add more water and ice to dilute the brine. I looked at that "7 cups" and thought "Wow, that's a lot of salt", but didn't think much of it.  We'll add another gallon of water and 3 gallons of ice cubes for the brine, so we may be okay. Then I measured out 7 cups of salt. OMG, that is a LOT of salt. Meathead calls for using warm water with the salt and sugar get it all dissolved. Yeah, good luck. I even used my immersion blender to help the process along. I put the lid on the container and shook it to help the process along. That wasn't happening; I added another 2 quarts of water and heated the solution up to just short of boiling, Still not complete dissolution.

The brine ingredients. Mark the water level.

After adding the salt and sugar. Look at the water and salt levels now.

Accidental picture, but I kind of like it.

I then went back to an older Alton Brown / Good Eats recipe that I used for brining a few years ago. That recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar in 2 gallons of liquid. Okay, I'm using way too much salt. I scooped out over a cup of salt from the bottom of the pan and reserved the rest of the liquid.

After simmering, still not dissolved

Most of the undissolved salt

I suspect tomorrow morning I'll have more salt that precipitates out. That will be just fine; I'll take what I get. We won't know until the eating, but if this ends up too salty, I'll revert to Alton Brown's brine.

Preparing this brine took over an hour, not counting the time I had to go to the store because I forgot to check if I had 7 CUPS OF SALT!


Links to other pages of the project

• The Plan
• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Cooking Log

Camp Watson

We got to go to adult summer camp on Hood Canal the last weekend of August. I call it summer camp because we got to sail, swim, hike. The main differences between this camp and YMCA camp as a kid are

• Better food
• We get to drink
• We didn't get to make lanyards.

Jay and Mary Ann (our neighbors and friends) are the camp counselors; John and Karen Lee were are fellow campers. I love it when we are able to get up there. The camp is our friends the Watson's place up in Washington about a 3 1/2 - 4 hour drive from Portland. The pin doesn't exactly point to their place, but it shows that it is on the bottom of the fish hook.

We got a late start Friday, it took an hour to get out of Beaverton over the Fremont Bridge and through Vancouver. From there we headed up I5 to Olympia and took US 101 up to the canal. Camp Watson stays open late and we got in in plenty of time for cocktails and dinner.

View from the deck

Looking north from Camp Watson

Carla and I wasted no time getting settled into our bunks and then joined the other kids for evening revels.

Carla enjoying the view and working on her needlepoint. Camp counselor Jay has the cooking duties

Like I said; better than kid camp; the drinks are great.

Karen enjoying the evening after a full day of camping activities

Fellow campers Jay and John

Jay and John went out fishing Friday; John caught a trout which made up part of our dinner. The circle of life was very evident; the trout had an itty-bitty fish in its stomach. We also had some salmon.

The fish John caught. 

Saturday was a gorgeous, gorgeous day; the back (front?) wall of the cabin is a set of 4 French doors that open on a deck overlooking the water. We ate breakfast inside then just hung around relaxing for awhile. When it warmed up a bit we got to go sailing. The camp has so many boats; we started scheming how we could take the armada across the canal for a raid on a rival camp.

The Camp Watson fleet

I grew up in the desert and know nothing about sailing, but Jay and John are able-bodied sailors. John manned the tiller while Jay and I switched between manning the lines for the foresail and main sail, depending on where the wind came from. We went aboard the flag ship and set sail

Admiral Jay

Captain John manned the tiller.

I've learned enough commands to know to duck when we "come about".

Camp Watson has its very own oyster and clam beds. They put down a few thousand clams a couple of years ago; they weren't quite ready for eating, but there were other clams not far away. We had clams and hot dogs for lunch

Steamed clams

We cooked the oysters on the grill for an appetizer for dinner.

Oysters grilled in their shells.

I had cooking duty Saturday night and thought I'd try something fairly simple: tri-tip with Santa Maria rub. I picked up a couple of nice roasts at Costco earlier in the week and mixed up some Santa Maria rub, so it was but the work of a few minutes to get them on the grill.

Tri-tip starting out over direct heat

Camp Watson is outfitted with a classic Weber gas grill; the kind with two rows of "flavorizer bars".  I started them over direct heat to get a sear on, then moved to the fron where they finished up. While dinner was cooking we took part in the evening social hour.

From left to right: Mary Ann, Carla, John, Jay

Enjoying the evening. A nice view of the back (front?) of the "cabin".

After a couple of beers dinner was ready.

Mary Ann and/or Karen made a fantastic salad. Blackberry buckle was dessert.

Karen, Howard, Carla, Mary Ann

We enjoyed the sunset

Sunset at Camp Watson

When the stars came out we busted out our iPhone and iPad star gazing apps. I did get to finally see how the Big Dipper is the back half of Ursa Major, or as our resident scientist and camp counselor calls it, Weasel Major figuring it looks way more like a weasel than a bear.

Sunday morning we went up to Belfair for a walk on the north end of the canal; this is an estuary, where fresh and salt water mixes. If I learned my biology right, the salmon take their time working back up to the creeks, spending time in this tidal area lets them adapt to the change in salinity. This area features a lot of tidelands that are protected by dikes. In the next couple of years some of the dikes will be breached to allow the salmon to expand their habitat. (Did I learn that right Jay?)

Sunday afternoon I had to head back home. I timed my drive to leave just as the Dodgers were on the radio. I got to listen to a full game driving home; it was fantastic. Carla stayed a few extra days. She and Mary Ann headed up to Port Townsend where one of Jay and Mary Ann's daughters lives. She was out of town, so the girls hiked around town.

Carla and Mary Ann

Looking down on Fort Worden in Port Townsend

The local wildlife

Yard car!

Fort Worden

Carla came back home on the train Wednesday afternoon. The Watsons stayed behind for a few extra days.