cold smoked Turkey

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gibsorz

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Aug 27, 2014
104
13
Vancouver
Hey all,
I am hamming a turkey (curing) in a couple days. Has anyone ever cold smoked a hammed turkey before cooking it. I have cured and cold smoked brisket over night with the amnps to make an extraordinary Montreal smoked meat, it did not rest between cold smoke and cooking. Would the turkey need rest time the same way cheese does? Or is that just stuff you don't cook.

OK so no-one chimed in with an opinion so I ran with this project.

This year I did the turkey for my work party, normally I do a Montreal Smoked Meat, but did not want to go through the process of curing a 16 pound brisket, so I went for a 19 pound turkey.

Dropped it in a 5 gallon bucket, with an equilibrium brine for 5 days (1/2 cup kosher salt, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup sugar, Prague powder for 156 ppm for total weight) per gallon. It took 3 gallons of water, plus the turkey weight, it needed 50 grams of Prague powder. No picture of that.

Left it in the fridge for 5 days. Pulled it after 5 days, soaked it in 3 gallons of water for 30 minutes.

Patted it dry, put it on the fan for 45 minutes.

Got the AMNPS running, then into. the WSM it went. Gave it two rows of smoke on Cherry pellets (7 hours). Temp was 60 f in the smoker, 50 f outside (the amnps goes directly into the smoker).

Pulled the bird, it got colour but the pic isn't the greatest :


Into the reefer it went overnight.

Then today I cooked it in the oven 475 for 20 minutes then dropped it down to 250. Cooked it until the thigh was 180 and the breast was 170.

Looks perfect:

I chopped the tail off, for the taste test. It is excellent. It could probably use a full 48 hours rest instead of the 12 it got before cooking, but the skin is the only part with a little ash taste, and it won't be noticeable to the untrained pallet as long as they don't just skin the bird and eat the skin on its own, the rest has no ash taste.
 
Last edited:
OK, so for some reason my phone isn't posting photos, stupid Android was never a problem when I ran iOS.

Highly recommend doing this if you are looking for something different. Next time I have a smaller bird I might try deep-frying it after the cold smoke.
 
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