Tom's 1st Smoked Turkey

This was my first attempt at smoking a turkey, and I have to say that it turned out really well.  Not only was this my first smoked turkey, but it's also the first turkey I have cooked period.  I had the opportunity to test out my new DigiQ for the BGE while also celebrating my Dad's birthday (belated), watching the Falcons play the Seahawks, and eating good food on top of it all!  This made for a great Sunday with the family.

Step 1: I went to Publix on Saturday morning and picked up a fresh turkey.  The frozen ones were a lot cheaper, but I didn't have the time to fully thaw it before cooking.  I also chose to brine the turkey for 24 hours before cooking.  This was my basic brine which includes onions, garlic, thyme, citrus basil rub, kosher salt, and brown sugar.  I put all of this in a bring back with the turkey and placed it in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

 

Step 2: Season the turkey and heat up the Big Green Egg.  I used a Sweet Basil Citrus rub that I found at Sam's to season the turkey inside and out.  Pictured below is my new DigiQ being used to heat the BGE to 250 degrees.  I started heating the egg around 7:30am so that it would be ready for the turkey shortly after 8am or so.  For this cook I used 3 cherry wood chunks along with a mixture of apple and pecan chips.

 

Step 3: Once the BGE hit 225 degrees I placed the turkey on my new roasting rack and put it on the egg.  There are plenty of firsts and new toys in this post in case you haven't already noticed!  With the use of the DigiQ, the egg quickly came up to temp and held nicely!  At this point it was "close the lid and forget about it time." 

 

This is a better picture of the whole set up and a 15lb bird at the start of the smoke.

 

Pictured below is the BGE chugging away putting out nice smoke with the use of the DigiQ.  I was very please with it's performance on my first cook with it.

 

Pictured below is the turkey roughly 4.5 hours into the cook.  This was the first time I opened the egg to take a look and show my parents what they were about to enjoy for lunch.  At this point the internal temperature was between 150-155 and about 30 minutes away from being done.

 

Step 4: When the internal temperature of the turkey reached 165, I pulled it from the egg and allowed it to rest for about 20 minutes.  I had the thermometer probe placed in the thickest part of the breast.  The total time to cook this 15 lb turkey was right around 5 hours.

 

Step 5: Plate the turkey with all the sides that go with it and enjoy!  We had turkey, corn casserole, stuffing, green beans, hashbrown casserole and two types of gravy!  I also had my favorite part of the turkey on my plate, the leg!