“Wow! This is the best turkey I’ve ever had. I didn’t know that turkey breast didn’t have
to be dry.”
--- One
of the guests at our last Thanksgiving dinner
A
TALE OF TWO TURKEYS
Every once and a while you have to do something
yourself. Barbeque is no exception. Now, I am certainly not a competitive
barbeque chef, but for the last twenty years, or so, I have been barbequing
very well received turkeys in a Weber Kettle®.
There is no great secret to this.
I simply thaw a frozen Butterball® turkey, oil it up, loosely stuff it
with a chopped onion, garlic and fresh herbs, and do it, by the numbers, just
the way the instruction book says.
Admittedly there are a couple of tricks.
I use natural lump charcoal, (mesquite is what’s easily available in
this area,) and Jack Daniels® Whiskey Barrel smoke chips. They come out golden, moist and tasty every
time.
Family tradition dictates that I barbeque one of the
Thanksgiving turkeys. This year I did
both of them. In thanks for handling
some family business my siblings gifted me a Big Green Egg®. I had seen them at some high end kitchen
appliance stores, but had never paid much attention to them. I didn’t even know that they are considerably
different from the Weber Kettle®. My
first clue to the difference was when the delivery driver took the box off the
truck with a small fork lift. This thing
is heavy.
After it was dollied back to its position on my patio I
opened the box and discovered that it was made of ceramics. It consists of a glazed bottom shell into
which you insert a ceramic fire box with a fire ceramic ring on top of that to
support the grill. The glazed top shell has
a spring counter balanced steel hinge for opening which is attached to both
shells with steel clamp bands. The whole
thing is supported on a heavy, sturdy steel stand with wheels. None of the individual parts were too heavy
for my wife and me to lift together, so we easily assembled it.
Well, maybe not that easily. Some years back my automotive tool box was
stolen from my car. Among the contents
was my torque wrench. Shortly thereafter
my wife and I bought Subaru cars, which are completely electronic (They don’t
even have distributors!) and I stopped working on cars, so I never replaced the
torque wrench. The instructions for
attaching the hinge clamps on the Big Green Egg had several torque
callouts. (Yes, I do read the
instructions before assembling something.
When all else fails, read the instructions.) Since the shells are ceramic it’s easy to see
why they emphasize the torque settings on the clamp bolts for the straps. You don’t want to crack anything. Anyway, I am once again the owner of a torque
wrench.
Now that I had it together I had to learn to use it. Basically, you fill the fire box with natural
lump charcoal, (Never use briquettes in one of these.), and light it off. Once the fire is built you control it with
the upper and lower vents. There is a
thermometer that pokes through the top shell to make this task more
precise. Since the whole thing is
ceramic, the mass of it retains heat which probably makes it more economical of
charcoal since you can build the fire in it, heat the whole thing up, and keep
the temperature controlled for hours. Oddly,
the Egg did not come with an instruction manual other than for assembly and
safety procedures. I had to download the
cooking instructions from their web site.
I started with a nice roasting chicken for practice. The chicken takes longer per pound than a
turkey. This may have something to do
with the ratio of cavity to meat…the turkey is less dense. I discovered that it is difficult to control
the temperature in my egg below 300 degrees.
This is fine for poultry, cuts of meat that do not require long slow
smoking, and things that require higher temperatures like pizzas, but might be
problematical for ribs, or brisket. I
only had a couple of weeks to practice, but I felt ready for Thanksgiving.
We had 22 people coming for dinner so we got two 14 pound
birds. Sharon decided to make a spice
and herb rub and a cranberry barbeque sauce for the bird done in the Egg. The rub goes under the skin of the bird. The sauce goes on the last 15 minutes of
cooking. I decided to use cherry wood
smoke chips with this bird. I started
the fire about 45 minutes before the turkey went in to make sure I had control
of the temperature which was 325 degrees (F).
The turkey was supported in a V-roasting rack sitting on a grill rack
that was atop a shallow roasting pan that was on the grill. I had the Egg positioned on the patio near
one of the den windows so I could check the thermometer without going
outside. The Big Green Egg® does not
require as much fire tending as the Weber Kettle®.
The bird in the Weber Kettle® was done in the usual way
using the indirect heat method with the two side holders for the charcoal and a
drip pan between them under the grill directly under the bird. This requires fire tending every half-hour
since the charcoal holders are small.
With both birds I started checking the breast and thighs
with an instant read thermometer about an hour before they were scheduled to
come out to make sure that they were done just right. They both came out on schedule and were taken
inside and tented with foil for a half hour to get firm enough for carving. Both birds were moist and juicy, and I can’t
say that the one done in the Egg was any better than the one done in the kettle.
Twenty-two people devoured 28 pounds of
turkey, not to mention all the other things on the menu. There were almost no leftovers, just enough
for a sandwich, a turkey burrito (I live in California, get over it!) and a few
tidbits for the cats. If I had to give
my own barbequed turkey a rating it would be a 10.
Here’s the complete menu:
A Down Home Thanksgiving
Appetizers
Artisan Cheeses Soft Pretzels
Other temptations
Main Course
Sage and Thyme Smoked
Turkey Cranberry Barbequed Turkey
Mashed Potatoes and
Gravy Sea Salt Sweet Potatoes
Mac and Cheese Cupcakes
Peanut Coleslaw Green Beans Gremolata
Baking Powder
Biscuits Rosemary Olive Corn Bread
Desserts
Pumpkin Pie Apple Pie Pecan Pie
Assorted Cookies
