Happy "Smoked" Thanksgiving Turkey

Well Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful time with family, friends, and loved ones. I hope you had your tummy filled with delicious food. This year I was able to smoke a turkey for our families.

I started off with 14-15 lbs turkey and brined it for at least 12 hours in the following solution in a cook grade 5 gallon bucket.

2 Gallons of Water

2 Cups Kosher Salt

3 Cups Sugar

1/4 Cup Liquid Crab Boil

4 TBS Black Pepper

1 TBS Dried Rosemary

1 TBS Thyme

1/4 Cup Molasses

1/4 Cup White Wine (not Cooking Wine)

1/4 Cup Worcestershire

After brining, I washed the bird well, both inside and out with cold water and set it aside so I could dry it off. Once the bird was dry, i began to separate the skin from the meat,being careful not to tear the skin. I prepared a rub to lightly season the bird.

2 TBS onion powder

1 TBS paprika

2 tspn white granulated sugar

1 tspn celery salt

1 tspn pepper

1 tspn powdered sage

I lightly applied the rub both on and under the skin. I didn't make a lot of rub for that purpose.

I then heated up the smoker to 225 degrees and put the turkey in breast side down. I used a mix of apple and cherry wood for my smoke. After about an hour I then flipped the bird over breast side up for the remainder of the cooking.

After a couple of hours, when I thought the breast and wings looked brown enough, I wrapped them in tin foil to prevent burning. After about 7 to 8 hours, and the internal temperature of the bird reached 167 -170 degrees, I pulled the turkey out of the smoker, wrapped it all in tin foil and placed it in the microwave to rest for 30 minutes.

After the 30 minutes, I unwrapped the turkey and carved up all the meat. It was moist, it was juicy, and it was delicious.