Nov 12, 2011

Thanksgiving Smoked Turkey

As Thanksgiving is right around the corner, the big question is how to prepare the turkey.

The tradition would want that you heat your oven to 350F and let it roast slowly for several hours. Your wood fire oven holding in the steam, your turkey will turnout juicy, tender and fully cooked, rather than all dried out from a regular conventional electric oven.

Here is a fun and unique alternative to prepare your Thanksgiving turkey that will delight your guests; smoke it.

The Bread Stone Ovens Company has the unique feature of an insulated door and a shut-off valve for the smoke pipe which allows you to smoke almost anything.

Here is the best way to smoke your Thanksgiving Turkey in your Wood-Fired Brick Oven.

For this Blog I used pictures and videos of a chicken I smoked but it is the same with a turkey, the smoking process is just longer for a turkey than a chicken.

Put your turkey to marinate in a brine for about 24 hours.

Soak some smoking wood chips or smaller pieces of wood that you cut yourself for a few hours.

Fire your oven slowly for 1.5 hours to 250 F. Unlike cooking pizza where the goal is to have the oven chamber really hot, you want the dome and the hearth of the oven to be evenly heated. This will allow for the heat to be returned consistently and cook slowly during the smoking process.

Remove the turkey from the brine and place it on a rack in a roasting pan.

Towards the end of the heating process try to use bigger pieces of wood that will create some nice coals.

Once the calls are well formed, push them to both sides of the oven trying to evenly dividing them. With a nice log make a barrier between the coals and the center of the oven and do the same for both sides.

Place you turkey in the center of the oven.

Put the wood chips on the coals on both side in an even layer.

Close the oven with the insulated door and then shut of the flue connector.

Let your turkey smoke 10 to 16 hours depending on the size, we count 30 to 35 minutes per pounds. For example a 7lb chicken take 6 to 7 hours to smoke. Doing it overnight is probably the best timing for your Thanksgiving meal.