Smoked Turkey & Andrew Stone
Andrew Stone is in town for the weekend and I had a chance to play with his new app.
It is quite incredibly cool. Andy has the knack for taking Mac OS X media APIs and making ‘em do quite totally surprising things…
I’m having a lot of fun stewing my photos and music into new stuff.
We are having a small Stone Gathering today and I’m smoking a turkey (pictured at the left; basted, sitting on a beer can and ready to head into the BGE). I have never cooked a turkey before, so this should be an adventure.
The turkey is sitting on a Fosters beer that is about 2/3rds full of beer with the rest of the space occupied by garlic, onion, and dried scotch bonnet peppers. The turkey was brined in apple cider, water, salt, honey, maple syrup, and black pepper. Prior to putting it on the BGE, I created a basting sauce containing honey, molasses, budapest paprika, oil, apple cider, rosemary, finely ground coffee, salt, pepper, and fresh orange. This was ground into a liquidy paste that was slathered on the turkey.
The turkey will cook for about an hour at 250 degrees and then I’ll boost the temperature to about 300 for the next few hours, followed by a finish at 350 to 375.
It is being smoked over a mixture of fresh apricot wood and hickory chips on a bed of mesquite charcoal.
The second photo is from about half way through cooking. Normally, you never open the egg during cooking. Given the long cooking time and the yumminess of the basting goop, we decided to crack the egg long enough to add another coat of goop. Smells damned good.
Was damned good. And, No, I do not drink Fosters. It just happens to be in the perfect can to shove up the hind end of a turkey. There is nothing else holding that bird up right other than the can and the two legs.
May 7th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Oh dear God, you don’t drink Fosters do you? We exported that from Australia because no one here would drink it! Are you able to get Coopers at all?
How did the Turkey taste? Do you get the wood flavours into the meat?
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:05 am
[...] A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I got to play with Andrew Stone’s new app. [...]
May 29th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
[...] As my previous grilling recipes have indicated, I like precision in my cooking. I use at least two probe thermometers throughout, one for the meat and one to monitor the ambient cooking temperature. [...]
April 7th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Just trying to figure out how the beer can sits. Is it always upright so that the beer doesn’t spill out? I assume that is how it would work otherwise the beer would go everywhere.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
That is correct; the bird sits on top of the open can as if it were a stand.
Nice cookware — want to send me some?
June 19th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Ohh yaaa Ive made smoked turkey before, as well as fried turkey.. Smoked turkey is nice because you can smoke it with practically anything. As I was reading this I kept thinking “i hope he used some good wood chips” and yes you did. Good job! I bet it tasted excellent and if it didnt then you did something wrong lol..
Try try again!
Goodluck
September 26th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I agree with the Fosters comment, definately no good for drinking but perfect for a turkey’s arse
I think we will attempt your method this Thanksgiving for something new and different. Great pics by the way!
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:01 pm
That part about raising the heat at the end is really important. I did beer can chicken like this, but tried for low and slow (250 degrees for 2 hours or so). If you do this, the skin turns leathery. When you raise the heat like you do at the end, you render some of that fat out of the skin and the skin gets cripsy instead of rubbery.
Same thing applies for chicken pieces. People always want to leave the skin side up the whole time. Start them with the skin side down to render some of the fat first (especially with the dark meat). Then do skin side up.
Sorry for the long post…it just all came flooding out.
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:02 am
You’re braver than me … I cook chicken like this all the time, but have never tried a turkey. One tip that has been helpful to me – I also use a type of “goop” (love those technical cooking terms) but don’t put it on till near the end of cooking.
We’ve had trouble with sweet basting sauces burning, and adding it at the end makes no difference in flavor.
Oh, and the Fosters? It may not be great, but it’s still entire worlds superior to Budweiser, the American export of choice.
February 4th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Andrew that sounds like a very good method. Question: why the ground coffee? I’ve never used that before as a cooking ingredient. Also, you might forego that last couple hours at 375 and instead slow cook in oven while tightly double wrapped in foil.
-tim