My Innagural Italian Smoke w/ qview

[grillin_all_day]

As the titles says, tomorrow will be my innagural Italian smoke.  I got the turkey brining in what I will call my "Oops Brine".

The ingredients are:

1 cup kosher salt

1 cup white sugar

fresh cracked pink peppercorns (they were available so I got them)

fresh cracked black peppercorns

4 large cloves garlic

1 medium onion

1.5 grapefruit (this is where the oops comes in, I wanted to be different and grabbed what I thought were blood oranges, but to my suprise, they were grapefruits!)

7 fresh sage leaves (rubbed in hands to release the oils)

3 sprigs fresh rosemary (rubbed in hands to release the oils)  

thyme (couldn't find fresh, so I used dry)

*Note, I went old school w/ the peppercorns and crushed them w/ a mortar and pestle.  If you're going to use oranges, I was going to use 3, but since I didn't want the grapefruit to over power the brine, I only used 1.5.

Anyway, on w/ the qview......

The ingredients

 

The bird (a 9 lb. minimally processed bird)

 

And finally the bird taking a nice long bath.  More qview's to come tomorrow, Italian time

 

[bonedadddy]

Very nice...I saw a citris brine recipe that was similar, but decided against it...as I am stuffing the turkey with oranges, lemons and grapefruit...didnt know if it would over do the citris.

Anyways, look forward to the finished product! I had to smoke my turkey today, as we are taking it over to my parents house...its been on for about 3 hours!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[mballi3011]

Everything looks awesome so far. But I would watch out how many oranges and other citrus that you are using for it might start to cook the bird.

 

[rp ribking]

I know about god's time, butt what is Italian's time.

Nice bath for the Turkey.

 

[meateater]

Looks great, I love a citrus brine and have done it that way for the last few years.

 

[grillin_all_day]

Everything looks awesome so far. But I would watch out how many oranges and other citrus that you are using for it might start to cook the bird.

Thanks everyone.  That was a concern too, so I scaled back, especially when I realized they were grapefruits.  Also, forgot to add that it took almost 3 gallons of water (because of the container) to get the bird submerged.  In fact, it's about time that head out and fire up the smoker, throw in some apple wood and rinse the bird off to get crackin for an early dinner. 

 

[grillin_all_day]

Well, the bird is out of it's bath, which smelled absolutely amazing.  Here it is rubbed down w/ garlic infused olive oil and some Old Bay seasoning

Here it is in it's new home for the next couple of hours.  Below it is the drip pan filled w/ a little chicken stock for some gravy.

Stay tuned, more to come!

 

[thebarbequeen]

Can't wait to see it! Your brine looks and sounds DELICIOUS - I'm stealing the grapefruit for oranges idea!