On my little Weber grill. Nothing fancy shmansy.
After perusing several grilling/barbecue books, I ended up combining techniques from Weber’s Way to Grill: The Step-by-Step Guide to Expert Grilling (Sunset Books) (an excellent book), and The Barbecue! Bible.
The night before I smoked the turkey, I rubbed it all over with kosher salt (instead of brining it – the salt rub works like a brine), and let it sit over night in the refrigerator, uncovered. If the skin looks all shriveled the next day
, that’s a good thing. After getting the charcoal fire going, I tossed in some soaked mesquite (kiawe, for those of you from Hawai’i) chips, and smoked a 16 pound turkey for five and a half hours, adding about 12 coals every hour to keep the heat going.
Thereafter, to quote my husband, I discovered that this is his equivalent of crack. He went crazy. The dogs went crazy. He ate the whole turkey himself over the course of about a week, and would shoot me horrified looks when I suggested freezing it or, gasp!, giving some away. He ate it for lunch and dinner almost every day. The dogs would follow him around, waiting for any tasty morsel that he would deign to give them.
Now, I knew he liked smoked turkey, since his dad makes a mean smoked turkey, but I had NO idea he was this fond of it. It is, I believe, his favorite food, and he hasn’t had homemade smoked turkey in 10 years, ever since me moved from Hawai’i.
Needless to say, this dish is on the repeat list.