With everyone being stuck at home for Thanksgiving, I had a lot more requests for turkeys this year. Definitely the most I've done at once, but everything turned out good and I get to eat ribs for the next month whenever I want on top.
Yep, just try to get them to 'sit' up as much as I can. I have a couple of vertical roasting inserts that I used on a couple of the bigger ones in the back, but not enough for what's pictured. It's a mix of apple and cherry. I'd say 70% cherry, 30% apple. As far as rub, I honestly just grabbed a big container of Weber's garlic and herb dry rub since it paired well with the citrus brine I did for them all the night before.
So, I don't have specific amounts because I had to make such a large base batch of it to accommodate 13 turkeys, but it's basically this: sliced lemon and oranges, quartered white onion, whole garlic cloves (lightly crushed), whole black peppercorns, bay leaves, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary, salt, and sugar. Combine all in a pot, bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer for 10 minutes then let cool. (You can pour in a bunch of ice to cool quickly) Pour into your brining apparatus (I used a bunch of 5gal buckets from HD/Lowes) add your turkey and then add water until the turkey is fully submerged. Chill overnight.
At what point are you in danger of over brining a meat? I did a simple wet salt brine, will be doing a dry brine, then smoking my small 4.12lb duck whole. I'll be stuffing it with oranges and using apple wood and charcoal. I let it wet brine from super late Sunday night to early this morning. I read that you shouldn't brine for more than 24hrs. Did I fuck up my duck?
I wouldn't say you 'fucked it up', but I would say you might want to skip the salt dry-brine and maybe just do an overnight with whatever other herbs you were going to add to the dry brine. Otherwise you're going to have a very salty duck.
Ah, fart. I already put the dry brine on. 2t kosher flake salt and 1/2 baking powder. I may be misunderstanding the dry brine process. I thought that was more to pull extra moisture out of the skin? The baking powder was added for skin crispiness. Maybe I farted up all the steps to this. I read here and there about smoking ducks but have never cooked one, period. They are supposed to smoke well because they are so fatty but there were a lot of suggestions on how to make sure you didn't end up with too fatty a roast, or with the skin too soggy. Like taking a needle and pinpricking all over to let the fat drain, and finishing under the broiler in the oven. Do you think I should brush off whatever salt I can at this point? Any tips or suggested reading?
The purpose of a brine is to flavor the meat as well as helping to draw moisture into it. Wet or dry, it's going to utilize the same process via the salt to first pull moisture out of the meat to help tenderize, but after long enough, the meat will then pull the salt and accumulated moisture back into itself to make for a more moist vessel. In your specific case, it really doesn't make sense to do BOTH a wet brine and a dry brine, if you're only looking to get extra dry skin out of it. Your best bet in THAT case is to take all of the salt off of it, pat it as dry as you can with paper towels and then place it on a cooling rack over a baking sheet and throw it in the fridge, uncovered until it's ready to be cooked. That will allow the exterior to completely dry out, which is what you really need for crispiness.
What did you smoke at? I have a pellet grill and dont want to be tending it for 9 hours. Might try something higher for a shorter time or just smoking for a few hours and then transferring it to and oven to finish. Not really sure what temps might work best? I also did your citrus brine it's sitting in now. I think that is going to taste great.
It fluctuated between 225-250, but my smoker's a stick burner, so it takes a lot more tending than a pellet burner. If you don't want to spend all day messing with it you could always do it at a lower temp like 250-275ish for a few hours to get a good smoke on it, then crank it up to finish it off and get a good crisp to it.
Smoked, sliced, and bagged 37lbs of bacon over the weekend to give out to friends and family for Christmas presents. Did two different cures; one with coffee & molasses and another with ground ginger and clove to make a gingerbread style.
anyone made beef jerky in their smoker? And for anyone who has, what temp/how long, and what cut of meat do you usually use?
Yep. I've done it in my electric smoker a few times. Temp has been between 160-170 for between 4-6 hours depending on how thick you slice your meat. I always go with top round, because it's typically the cheapest, and it has almost no fat, except for a cap, which I just cut off. I do recommend you throw the whole roast in the freezer for about 30-45 minutes before you slice it so that it firms up enough that it doesn't slide all over the place when you cut, but isn't a solid block of frozen meat either.
do you marinade it or rub? im thinking using a IPA to marinade overnight, along with some cracked pepper, sea salt and garlic powder
Marinade. I use soy sauce, worcestershire, honey, black pepper, onion powder, and red pepper flakes. When I use the dehydrator instead of the smoker, I also throw in a tsp of liquid smoke, but found it unnecessary if you're doing it in the actual smoker. I try to do a 24 hour marinade then just throw it in the smoker first thing in the morning.