Smoking more than one Turkey at a time

[whitega33]

Hello everyone. I am very new to smoking meat and I recently tried my first smoked turkey last weekend that involved several different recipes on this website. It turned out very good and moist. I was very surprised. Because of this, I was eleveted to smoke a Turkey for the Thanksgiving this year so I needed some practice. However, with the size of my family I will need to smoke 2 turkeys. I plan on smoking two 10lb turkeys in my Brickman vertical smoker. My question is, what is the best way to cook these? Do I need to cook longer? At a higher temp? Switch positions of the two birds during smoking? How many times do I switch them?

 

[rbranstner]

Cook them at the same temp as you did the single bird until the internal temp says they are done. It shouldn't take much longer as long as you can keep the temps stable in your smoker. Depending on your smoker you may need to rotate the birds from top to bottom if there is a temperature difference between your grates. I personally would probably rotate them between racks after around 2 hours or something like that just to make sure they get done somewhat at the same time. If the temps are even across all your grates then don't worry about rotating them.

 

[scarbelly]

Cook them at the same temp as you did the single bird until the internal temp says they are done. It shouldn't take much longer as long as you can keep the temps stable in your smoker. Depending on your smoker you may need to rotate the birds from top to bottom if there is a temperature difference between your grates. I personally would probably rotate them between racks after around 2 hours or something like that just to make sure they get done somewhat at the same time. If the temps are even across all your grates then don't worry about rotating them.

The rotation in a vertical is going to be important as one is sitting closer to the heat source so be sure check temps and rotate.  I started on this unit and I personally would cook one ahead of time and reheat it. Two is going to be tricky. Good luck and don't forget the qview  

 

[adiochiro3]

Good advice from both.  I started on the Brinkman as well, and I would rotate around the 2 hour mark as rbranster says if I were smoking 2 at a time.  Turkey reheats really well in several ways, so smoking one at a time is not a problem as far as food quality goes.

 

[SmokinAl]

Sounds like the guys answered your question.

 

[roller]

Looks like they have you covered with some real good advice...And Welcome to SMF...good to have you here..

 

[whitega33]

Thanks everyone for your replies, this will help out a lot. Thanks for the welcome! If anyone has anymore advise please feel free to comment.

 

[rbranstner]

I also second the comment about smoking them ahead of time. Last year I smoked all of my birds ahead of time and just reheated them on Thanksgiving and they were so nice and juicy. It was so nice not to have to worry about smoking my bird on the big day. I just popped the birds in the roaster oven on low heat with some liquid in the bottom and let it roll. Normally I would smoke the bird that day but I was oncall for work last year and I didn't want to have to worry about getting called out and having an unattended bird in the smoker. Now after cooking it ahead of time that is what I am going to do every year just to make it easier on myself. And also that way I do a bunch of them for people at work as well.

 

[raptor700]

I started on this type smoker as well, this is all good advice.

The two at a time will be tricky but you can pull it off 

                              

 

[pstravlo]

I want to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving. I have a beautiful brick smoker and have smoked a turkey before, came out beautiful.

My dilemma is my smoker is at my house in Denver, and our dinner is in Taos. I would need to smoke the turkey on Saturday, then transport it in an ice chest to Taos to reheat on Thursday.

Any suggestions or warnings?