Easy Smoked Turkey Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep a turkey moist when smoking? ›

You can baste or spritz with chicken broth while smoking the turkey to help keep it moist as well as help crisp up that skin. The butter of this recipe will really get that skin crisp, so the spritzing is more to keep it from drying out.

By brining the turkey first, you help to moisten it up and keep it tender while it is in the smoker. It also helps to even out the cooking time of all the meat of the bird, as some parts of the turkey will cook faster than others.

Set the smoker to 225° F. Place the turkey on a cooking rack and cook for 8 to 12 hours or until the inner thigh temperature reaches 180° F. Check the temperature of your turkey after 3½ hours. Your turkey must pass through a critical range of 40° F to 140° F in 4 hours or less.

Recipe for Smoked Turkey Preparation

Quarter your apples, oranges, and onions. Make sure to peel the onion. Stuff half of the oranges, apples, and onions into the turkey, followed by all the fresh herbs. Finish by stuffing with the remainder of the apples, oranges, and onions.

If your turkey's wings are baking too quickly, you can cover them with foil, but otherwise, there's no need. While you're letting it rest, you can tent your turkey in foil for about 15 minutes, but smoking it the whole time in foil is unnecessary and could lead to soggy skin.

Turkeys should be brined overnight, coated with fat only initially, and minimally seasoned. Brining keeps the turkey from drying out during the smoking process. Basting the turkey only results in soggy skin. Overly seasoning the skin just makes inedible skin – let the brine and aromatics add flavor.

Wet and Dry Brines both work, because salt breaks down muscle proteins, so they won't contract while roasting (that means less tasty juice is muscled out of the bird). Wet brines infuse turkey with added moisture, but that plumping mostly comes from water, so there's a risk of milder tasting meat.

Dry-brined turkey and poultry tend to have crispier skin because the salt draws out excess moisture from the skin which allows for better browning during roasting or smoking, or even rotisserie cooking.

It's an enzyme that will break down the meat, tenderizing it and absorbing the flavor at the same time. Injecting solves the problems of a marinade or brine not getting deep into the meat in a timely fashion.

Completely thaw meat or poultry before smoking. Because smoking uses low temperatures to cook food, the meat will take too long to thaw in the smoker, allowing it to linger in the "Danger Zone" (temperatures between 40 and 140 °F) where harmful bacteria can multiply.

Can you overcook a turkey in a smoker? ›

One of the benefits of smoking a turkey is that it's almost impossible to overcook anything in a smoker. The temperature remains low and the cooking is slow, resulting in perfectly moist and tender meat with a rich, complex flavor.

The reason I recommend avoiding smoking a turkey over 15 pounds is that it can take too long to cook. Your bird will be sitting in the food safety danger zone between 40-140 degrees F for too long, and you risk bacteria overgrowing and spoiling your turkey before it is finished.

Though smoked chicken and turkey can still create HCAs and PAHs, they are, overall, heathier choices than red meat. Go lean. Next in line after poultry are lean cuts of pork (like pork loin, tenderloin and center cut chops).

The Right Way to Take the Temperature of Your Turkey

The government recommends cooking turkey breast to 165°F (74°C). I prefer my turkey breast at 150°F (66°F), at which point it is far, far juicier (especially if you dry brine it!).

Place the turkey in the smoker where the smoke can flow evenly around all sides. It should be placed squarely over your drip pan so as can catch all the drippings (and help keep your smoker clean).

The high-convection environment of a smoker is enough to draw out the moisture faster than the skin can crisp. The result is tough, leathery skin. We do a couple things to combat that effect. First off, the dry brine you apply will actually help the turkey skin retain moisture longer as it smokes.

You only need to coat it with oil before placing it on your smoker or grill. However, if you wet brined the turkey, coat its dried body with oil before applying your dry rub. After covering the turkey with your seasonings, insert your oven-safe wireless thermometer into the thickest part of the turkey thigh.

The best time to spritz your meat while smoking is just after the bark has formed. The bark on meat generally forms about 1:30 to 2 hours into your cook. It is important to spritz the meat every half hour to 45 minutes to prevent it from drying out.