# SmokeTheRobot's Thanksgiving Misadventures



## smokeytherobot (Dec 30, 2015)

So......

My wife and I planned to serve Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws' house way up yonder in the Texas Panhandle. I was in charge of smoking two turkeys on my MES Sportsman Eite and making the shrimp and andouille sausage dressing. My lovely wife was in charge of making the side dishes and the breakfast casserole. The day before Thanksgiving, my son and I got up early, made the brine, got the turkeys all washed, and began the brining process. (See my sweet tea brine post for the recipe!). My wife and daughters spent most of the day in the kitchen preparing the side dishes and desserts. After the kitchen cleared later that evening, I made my soon to be world famous shrimp and andouille sausage dressing. Every ice box and cooler was packed with ready to heat food. All is well  and ready to go for the big feast.

My son and I hit the hay early so we can get up at 1 AM to start our annual smoke fest. The smoker is ready to go with a good smoke, the turkeys are out of the brine, and coated with Jeff's Most Excellent Rub, the coffee is on and we are ready to go! We get the turkeys in the smoker, both of us salivating in anticipation of the Thanksgiving dinner. We can't wait for the jalapeno turkey, mom's mashed potatoes, grandma's sweet potato rolls, dad's tex-mex squash casserole and shrimp and andouille sausage dressing, etc. Once we knew everything was going well with the smoker, we decided to take a short nap then check on the turkeys. To make a long story short, half-way through the smoke (as luck would have it) the power went out at about 4 am; just three hours into the process. It came back on in about 5 minutes and we thought everything was going to be okay. Then at exactly 5:32 AM, the power went out again and stayed off until the following day! The turkeys were half cooked, and I just put the dressing in the oven about an hour earlier so it was half cooked.

Wasn't too pleasant at the time but we get a good laugh out of it now. The moral? Electric smokers are great smokers but work much better with electricity.

Oh, I made amends at Christmas...round two was a major success!


----------



## kjolly (Dec 30, 2015)

Yea, electricity does help but I have a emergency generator I could have hooked up.


----------



## drewed (Dec 30, 2015)

You just need a back up WSM.


----------



## mneeley490 (Jan 13, 2016)

Drewed said:


> You just need a back up WSM.










We had the power go out for a couple days last year, local restaurants, too. So all our meals were cooked on the Weber kettle. My overstock of Lowe's $9.98 Kingsford charcoal didn't sound so silly to my wife then.


----------



## chef jimmyj (Jan 13, 2016)

Drewed said:


> You just need a back up WSM.


A have to agree. I have 2 MES40's and a WSM is on the list...JJ


----------

