I'm Thinking About BBQing a Turkey this Thanksgiving

So plans have changed, and if the weather holds out I would like to BBQ a turkey. In my area we traditionally use oak wood to BBQ with, but interested in your ideas. I don't want to deep fry. I have a smoker and have thought about smoking a turkey with a mixture of oak and apple wood chips. What say you foodies?

Sounds good. I got addicted to smoking things with pecan wood. You tried it?

reply to post by missvicky
I love smoked turkey,never had a deep fried bird though.I hear they are really good.I'm a stuffing freak ,gotta stuff the bird.

I have a brinkman smoker/ grill with the smoking pot on the side. I used the firebox to smoke the turkey for six hours and put a fire in the big box too in the last two hours to finish grilling it. It turned out great but the eight hours of cooking set back dinner two hours from planned time. The smoked turkey didn't make very good soup in my opinion though. I like to make soup off the turkey and another thing is we didn't get any stuffing that way. We have a wood cookstove with a cast iron oven. We are going to try a turkey in that this year. It makes great meats for some reason, something to do with the cast iron's increased frequency output outside of the heat spectrum that mercury thermometers measure. Most thermometors work within a defined range which is not a full heating spectrum. As we know, radiant heat. microwave, and infrared heat is not really measured by a thermometer. I am sure there are lots of other names for wave patterns that can heat something that can cook food also.

Science has screwed this up by only testing what we think is real. Food cooked with wood tastes better most times. We evolved cooking on wood and some coals. Our bodies adapted to certain energies for heating and cooking, we cannot change that in a few generations. Too much change too fast causes problems with health. It is no wonder people suffer from SAD.

My husband (after 30+ years of marriage) has offered to BBQ the turkey for our upcoming Christmas dinner, and, of course, I said YIPEE! I am looking forward to the lessened workload on me and spending more time interacting with my family instead of sticking my head in an oven most of the day. Although, now that my oven is freed up I may have to bake someting very special for dessert.

I've done a couple on a big NewBraunfels Charcoal grill.
It took me longer. I think part of the problem was the wind...cooling off the grill.

But wow it was good.
The inside was stuffed with Lemons, Oranges, Onions and Fresh rosemary stalks.

It wasn't a smoker, so I made Mesquite pouches...put them on the coals..
it was SO GOOD..Where the Mesquite met the Citrus inside...mmm there were hardly any leftovers.

that's my turkey adventure!

We will definitely be creating wood chip pouches for our BBQ turkey...now to choose a flavour.

Wow all these replies are making me drool already!

Last year we were skiing, and we were having such a good day in the pow pow, that we got back so late we had to go surgical on the bird in order to eat in good time.

1). Breasts came off, went in the pan (on the bbq grill would have been better) then into the oven to finish... Never have I ever enjoyed turkey breast so much!

2). Legs came off and wings too, and into the oven for round two, ding ding... we ate and ate and ate, and the meat kept coming!

3). Carcass and jibblies went into the stock pot and we made an exceptional gravy from it... Plus a soup on Boxing day and a lasagna (with veal mince and egg plant) the day after!

I will never cook a whole turkey again, and if there is a bbq around it will all get bbq'd in pieces.

This was in France, and to be fair their turkeys are seriously tasty birds!

reply to post by f4andHALFtoads


That's what I'm thinking too...BBQ the bird in pieces. Probably marinate it for a few days prior too. I love to use a beer as a marinade with lemon, onion, garlic and herbs