Today I smoked a turkey, pork shoulder, and a little bratwurst for an appetizer.
I started the process around 11pm and went to the store to get a shoulder and turkey. I have limited experience with smoking turkeys, but what seems to work best for me is to get only the turkey breast. BBQ snobs will say you should get a free range/un-"enhanced" bird (ie, it's not injected with solution and/or brine) however I've found getting one that is minimally injected has worked great for me. (Pay attention as some are injected up to 15% of the weight in a brine solution. The one I prefer is 3%). Although this is one of my favorite hobbies, I'd still prefer not having to add an entire extra day to the process by making my own brine, especially when I can inject good stuff in it myself anyway.
Here is the prepped boston butt. I rub the whole thing in yellow mustard to help the spices stick and also protect the meat during the smoke. When it's done you will never know there was any mustard there (I hate the taste of mustard). You can see some of the spices I used. This is the first time I've tried the stubbs brand marinade. Tony Chachere's is my go-to, especially for brisket. For pork I often do an apple juice based injection (with cayenne, brown sugar, and whatever else), but I was in a hurry so went with an off the shelf solution.
Here is the prepped turkey breast. I used the bread knife to saw through and cut out the rest of the spine that was left in there. I also cut out a lot of the extraneous skin, but I wanted to keep enough to keep most of the meat covered to protect it from drying out. Also it's good practice to run your fingers under the skin to separate it from the meat and cover everything in olive oil to help the rub stick and keep it moist.
Since the 6.5 lb shoulder will take a lot longer than the 9lb turkey, I put the turkey in the fridge and the shoulder went on the smoker at about 1am keeping the temp between 225 and 250. I used the "minion method" with 75% standard charcoal and 25% lump coal. The lump coal burns a little hotter and faster. I used soaked peach wood chunks (not chips) for the smoke. The shoulder went on at about midnight with the plans of eating it the next night for dinner.
After about 12-13 hours (checking on it a few times during the night and giving it some sprays with apple juice), I wrapped the shoulder in a foil pan with a little apple juice in the bottom to help steam it. It was around noon which meant I needed to get the turkey on to get it started. The turkeys usually take about 30-45 minutes per pound.
Here's a pic of my 2 year old basting the turkey in melted butter/rub mixture. This helps give the bird a nice color as it smokes and the fat helps keep everything moist. I try to brush it with melted butter every hour or so.
This pic is about 16 hours in (4 hours for the turkey). I never tried smoking a brat before, so I threw 2 on at some point for a snack. I think they ended up taking around 1.5 hours. The plan was to put the rest of the package on later and simmer them in beer for an appetizer.
For the final hour, I also wrapped the turkey in a foil pan with apple juice.
I take the turkey off right when it hits 165 and let it rest (it still heats up a few degrees while resting). The shoulder I usually take to 195 or so since it will melt a lot of the fat out of there. It starts to pull apart around 190.
Here is the final product after everything rested for 30 minutes or so.
I'm very self critical of my bbq, but i thought everything turned out as good as I expected. I had plans for some new people joining us tonight so I used less heat (cayenne/red pepper) than I normally do, but everything kept very juicy and had a great smokey flavor.
Last edited by WiltOnTilt; 10-20-2012 at 03:03 AM.