Smoking a Turkey

[Clark Addison]

I am thinking of smoking a turkey tomorrow, which I have never done before. I have a Weber Smokey Mountain and have smoked lots of other stuff, but never a turkey. I've been reading some instructions online, and there seems to be two schools of thought. Some people smoke it on the high end of a normal smoking temperature, about 250 degrees. Others crank it up to oven type temperatures, 325 or 350. I'm leaning toward doing it at 250, but I have no real reason to do so, other than I like to keep it low when I am smoking.

Does anyone have experience with this?

[Jeff Lebowski]

If you read books on smoking, you will learn that after 1-2 hours, there is no additional penetration of smoke into the meat and you are simply cooking the meat in the smoker. Some experts recommend wrapping the meat for the latter part of the cooking cycle so as to not get too much smoke into the "bark" (the outer one inch or so that contains the bulk of the smoke flavor) and to avoid drying out the meat. So what I usually do is smoke my meat for one hour (seems to be sufficient) and then finish it off in the oven in a covered roaster with a little water. I like to slow cook at 250 degrees if I have the time, but I have yet to slow cook a turkey. I might give it a shot this year. Otherwise, I will put it in at 325 and cook until the temp is right.