Cook_in_Colorado
New member
Greetings!
I am LOVING my 3D!! I appreciate all of the wisdom and recipes posted! After smoking a variety of items, I am convinced that the best advice and recipes are found here, since no other smoker recipes equate.
Last Thanksgiving, I spatchcocked a dry-brined turkey (cornish hen blind taste test showed that dry brining was preferred over wet brining by the family) and roasted it - high temp - in the oven. It cooked SO quickly, my day felt ruined. The timing was off by half of a day. Then, the sides were ruined as I un-successfully raced to catch up. It was a disaster.
This year, since I have the 3D, I'm going to smoke the turkey. I bought a 13 pound hen, after reading about the low temp/danger zone issues with larger birds and bacteria growth. I am struggling to find a recipe with timings for a spatchcocked, 13ish pound turkey (again trying to have it all timed generally correctly), so I bought two chickens to test out timings. My goal was to equate 5.5lb chicken cooking times to the 13 pound turkey.
I wet brined both, spatchcocked one and set the SI to 235. They were on the same rack, breasts down (since that's how I roast a bird in the oven) and probes in each breast, with a IT goal of 160. The intact bird cooked faster than the spatchcocked one, which goes against every pro-spatchcock post I can find. I thought I had reversed the probes, but double checked my results were correct.
I used 4oz combination of apple, wild cherry, almond wood shreds and loved that mix.
I also cooked 2 turkey legs (so amazing, and skin was not rubbery) with the SI probe in one and they cooked so quickly, the SI shut off. By the time the intact chicken reached IT of 160 - breast - (spatchcocked chicken was IT breast 155), dinner was really late and I forgot to snap a photo. But, the juices were not clear and I found it sort of gross, so I put both in the oven to finish. This split the skin, which was fairly intact when coming off of the SI.
Until I got the thermoworks smoke thermometer, I had never paid so much attention to charting temps, and my IT temps were always overshot.
My questions are this:
1) Perhaps spatchcocking at a low temp makes the faster cooking time irrelevant?
2) Perhaps spatchcocking at a low temp is still a good idea to evenly cook the turkey?
3) Perhaps leaving the turkey intact will result in an evenly cooked turkey, in the SI, since it's so efficient?
4) Will a breast IT of 165 ruin the bird?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
Deb
I am LOVING my 3D!! I appreciate all of the wisdom and recipes posted! After smoking a variety of items, I am convinced that the best advice and recipes are found here, since no other smoker recipes equate.
Last Thanksgiving, I spatchcocked a dry-brined turkey (cornish hen blind taste test showed that dry brining was preferred over wet brining by the family) and roasted it - high temp - in the oven. It cooked SO quickly, my day felt ruined. The timing was off by half of a day. Then, the sides were ruined as I un-successfully raced to catch up. It was a disaster.
This year, since I have the 3D, I'm going to smoke the turkey. I bought a 13 pound hen, after reading about the low temp/danger zone issues with larger birds and bacteria growth. I am struggling to find a recipe with timings for a spatchcocked, 13ish pound turkey (again trying to have it all timed generally correctly), so I bought two chickens to test out timings. My goal was to equate 5.5lb chicken cooking times to the 13 pound turkey.
I wet brined both, spatchcocked one and set the SI to 235. They were on the same rack, breasts down (since that's how I roast a bird in the oven) and probes in each breast, with a IT goal of 160. The intact bird cooked faster than the spatchcocked one, which goes against every pro-spatchcock post I can find. I thought I had reversed the probes, but double checked my results were correct.
I used 4oz combination of apple, wild cherry, almond wood shreds and loved that mix.
I also cooked 2 turkey legs (so amazing, and skin was not rubbery) with the SI probe in one and they cooked so quickly, the SI shut off. By the time the intact chicken reached IT of 160 - breast - (spatchcocked chicken was IT breast 155), dinner was really late and I forgot to snap a photo. But, the juices were not clear and I found it sort of gross, so I put both in the oven to finish. This split the skin, which was fairly intact when coming off of the SI.
Until I got the thermoworks smoke thermometer, I had never paid so much attention to charting temps, and my IT temps were always overshot.
My questions are this:
1) Perhaps spatchcocking at a low temp makes the faster cooking time irrelevant?
2) Perhaps spatchcocking at a low temp is still a good idea to evenly cook the turkey?
3) Perhaps leaving the turkey intact will result in an evenly cooked turkey, in the SI, since it's so efficient?
4) Will a breast IT of 165 ruin the bird?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
Deb