turkey smoking commences
 

Picked up my first smoker, and with family in town we dedcide now is as good a time as any to try it out. Woke up at 5am to start the coals and prep the bird, anyone who knows me will understand what a feat that was. We're smoking with an applewood and cherry wood mix the wifes father recommends and an apple juice and apple slice mixture in the waterpan. The turkey is stuffed with apples, onions, and celery. Were expecting to eat around 5-6 tonight. I'm off to get more charcoal to stoke the firebox. Have to keep the temp around 200"thumbsup"

that sounds so good. im so hungry now!:shock:

mmm! I like to smoke pork shoulders and beef brisket. I need to do that again soon!

I've cooked on ours for the past four nights.

Plan on smoking some turkey breast tonight with a rub.

So I've done it a couple times, I find I have alot of issues keeping the temps up. and I seem to get more of a wood flavor then a smoke flavor. I am in dire need of help and suggestions here. I seem to have to finish everything in the oven, I'm wanting to do a Brisket next and I don't want to F' it up. Oh Smoker God's I beseech the' show me the error of my ways and lead me to the smoke ring!:ror:

using hardwood briquet's non instant light
hardwood chips and chunks w and w/o smoker box
I've tried with and without a water bowl
I've tried putting the meat in different locations, closer and farther from the heat

When I smoke, I never am more then 20 feet away from it at any time. I also use 2 digital thermometers ( one in the food and one in the chamber ) set with high and low alarms on to tell me when the meat reaches temp and to keep the cooking heat where I want it.

As for the food tasting like wood, try only using the wood chips, soaked in water, for the last 1/4 of the cooking time. That will decrease the wood flavor but still give you the smoked taste. I use dry rubs on almost everything I smoke and let the meat marinate for no less the 12 hours before it gets the Cheech and Chong treatment.

Always heard its hard to smoke a turkey. Hard to keep it lit and harder to puff on. :mrgreen:

Did you try brining your turkey before smoking?

Also, as mentioned, soaking the wood chips help a lot and only adding them in towards the end.

SS

What kind of smoker do you have? Are you using actual briquets or natural lump charcoal?

If using briquets, I like to start them in a seperate container before adding them to the smoker. IMO briquets give a bad flavor when not completely lit. Lump charcoal I add directly though. You can also put apple juice in a spray bottle and mist it every so often to keep it moist as charcoal smoking will dry it out, but that's why you are using a water pan as well to keep the humidty up. Wood chips I presoak and only add a little at a time so as not to cool the coals. But wood chunks I use dry.

Or you can skip the charcoal alltogether and use hardwood of your choice. You have to watch it more often to control your temps though but I used to like doing it this way.

I recently bought a Traeger pellet smoker. I have yet to try it for smoking but it makes a helluva wood fired pizza!

Turkeys are for the fryer.....Try smoking some young whole chickens. Brine them for 24 hrs and have at it...

Badger is pretty knowledgeable when it come to smoking....

You could also try some atomic buffalo turds...
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1454177_n.jpg

What type of smoker? What temps are you trying to keep? Do you have a digital thermometer or 2? Did you brine the turkey? As for wood flavor I would use the wood chips for the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the cook time and then just use charcoal to finish it off. A good meat for learning on is pork butt (also known as pork shoulder) it's probably the easiest meat not to screw up and it's cheap. If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

I have a vertical stove pipe type smoker, its setup with a charcoal pan, water pan, smoker level1 smoker level 2, large round lid with about 1/8 clearance around the lid and the outside of the smoker.

It seems like I have to keep adding charcoal, and it gets overloaded with ash before the meats cooked.

I use non-treated briquet's that I start and get up to full burn in one of those chimney starters and start all extra coals in it as well.

My wifes dad used the same smoker without issue, the only difference is his has a blanket that covers it, but she says he only uses it when its cold out.

Would the altitude here have anything to do with it, its about 4000 feet here, the other thing I noticed is that the smokers charcoal pan has no holes in it, and no grate for the coals to sit in, I'm guessing to keep the air out and temps down since its not a BBQ'r but I'm wondering if I should mod it to allow for higher temps?

Altitude will definately affect your cooking as it does with all cooking. If you have a blanket, use it. The more heat you can keep in, the less will escape and the less charcoal you will need to add, especially if your smoker is made of thin gauge steel. And I would atleast use a grate to place the charcoal on to let some air around it so it burns properly.