Smoked Turkey With Brine

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Tuesday night:  Brine: set the turkey (completely covered in brine) in
the fridge over  night (about 7 hours).  Wed: Removed on Wed morning
and rinsed well. Covered with peanut oil  and placed in fridge till I
got home from work (uncovered). After  work (it was an early day,
played 2 hours racquetball before coming  home and was still home by
1230) I injected with butter, garlic  powder, onion powder, hot sauce,
and black pepper. Dont know how much  cause I just kept making it until
I had injected every few inches.  Rubbed down with oil again, sprinkled
with black pepper, some poultry  seasoning, and garlic powder and
returned to fridge.  Thurs (reminder, my wife had to work so we planned
on eating late):  Removed from fridge to allow to warm to room temp.
Started fire about  11a. Injected one last time with same stuff as
before. Stuffed the  body cavity with onion chopped into quarters, and
half an onion in  the neck cavity. A friend had given me some
blackberry wine that was  to dry for me so I poured some into the body
cavity and mixed with  oil for the final rub down. Sprinkled more
pepper on it. Rest of wine  went into water bowl. Quartered several
more onions to be put into  the fire pan with the oak, hickory, and
blackjack oak. Used heavy  smoke and high heat for the first hour, then
let the heat drop down  to 275 and the smoke to light for the rest of
the cooking time. Bird  went in at noon and off at 8p. (21.45 lb. bird)
Done to perfection.  Wife and kids claimed best ever (been doin birds
for 16 years, only  been brining and oiling for the last year or so.
The oiling tip came  from this list (thanks Danny). In the past I just
wrote the blackened  skin off and peeled it off while carving. The
blackberry wine added a  slight fruitiness to the overall taste. I also
placed some foil pans  in the bottom rack to catch all the drippings.
Used this to make  gravy and to add to my cornbread stuffing. I was
afraid that the  juices would make the gravy to smokey to eat, but it
was just a  strong hint, with no gravy left. Kids loved it on the
dressing and  potatoes. Most of one breast was eaten last night, the
rest of that  one will be gone today. The other side will be samiches
for the week.  The dark meat will become chili this weekend, or I may
freeze it till  some cold weekend. Might use some to make some of the
soups in this  months On The Grill. My first cheesecake turned out
great!  Posted to bbq-digest V5 #729 by "Fergy" <circlef@the-link.net>
on Nov  28, 1997

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Nutrition (calculated from recipe ingredients)
----------------------------------------------
Calories: 655
Calories From Fat: 40
Total Fat: 4.7g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 11930.5mg
Potassium: 2716.7mg
Carbohydrates: 156.5g
Fiber: 42.4g
Sugar: 5.7g
Protein: 26.6g