As I mentally prepare to barbecue another Thanksgiving turkey, I am reminded of the fastest turkey I ever cooked.
I believe it was 1994, one of my buddies up north was having a "Biker's Thanksgiving Feast" so my girlfriend, my son and I headed up to St. Helena for the festivities.
Traffic sucked and what should have been an 8 hour drive turned into a 14 hour drive. After a couple of hours sleep I was informed that there were three turkeys to cook, and I was being assigned one of them, and that I was to barbecue it.
Normally I would be eager to take on this task, but then again, normally I would use my Weber Kettle. Instead, I was given this small rectangular thing that had a glass window in the front of the hood for easy inspection. I figured it was just a challenge and with some effort it could be done.
When barbecuing a turkey you must use the indirect heat method, which means you put a drip pan under the bird, with charcoal surrounding it. As the drippings are great for basting the bird the drip pan must have some sturdy sides so it can catch them. Bust the results are great.
Another issue when barbecuing is that every hour you need to add more charcoal to keep the heat going. This barbecue wasn't going to make life easy, but there were plenty of hands around, so I figured it wouldn't be much trouble.
It was a rainy day, so I set the barbecue on the patio, under the fiberglass and wood cover. Fired up the charcoal, got the temp up, and put the bird on the grill . . . so far so good.
An hour passed and it was time to add more charcoal and retrieve drippings from the pan to use for basting.
As I said, this barbecue wasn't going to make these tasks easy as I had to actually remove the grill in order to get to the drippings and add the new charcoal.
The plan was a friend would lift the turkey off the grill and I would quickly lift the grill enough to add the charcoal then get the turkey baster to suck up the juices. This shouldn't take more than a minute.
So, my buddy picks up the bird, I lift the grill and add the charcoal, this is working great. My buddy puts the bird back on the grill while we prepare for part two, retrieving the drippings.
The turkey is lifted again and I go in with the baster. Now, if you have ever used a baster you might remember that frequently when you suck juices into it, some will shoot out while you attempt to get the thing vertical. Well, that happened here.
A little juice squirted out and hit the hot coals. Immediately a huge flame erupted, which actually ignited whatever juice was still in the drip pan. We figured we would just put the turkey back on the grill and close the hood. The lack of oxygen would take care of the flames.
Nice theory.
Remember the glass inspection window? Well, that thing blew out pretty much as soon as the hood closed. Flames came shooting out searing the wood and beginning to melt the fiberglass roof.
Eventually the grease drippings burned away and the flames receded. I opened the hood to see what was left of the bird.
To say that the outer skin of the turkey was charred would be putting it mildly. However, when we pealed that off we were pleasantly surprised to discover that the inner meat was pretty moist and quite succulent.
The stuffing wasn't exactly what I had planned on, but the bird was pretty damn good. Total cooking time for a 20 pound turkey was about 65 minutes.
I believe it was 1994, one of my buddies up north was having a "Biker's Thanksgiving Feast" so my girlfriend, my son and I headed up to St. Helena for the festivities.
Traffic sucked and what should have been an 8 hour drive turned into a 14 hour drive. After a couple of hours sleep I was informed that there were three turkeys to cook, and I was being assigned one of them, and that I was to barbecue it.
Normally I would be eager to take on this task, but then again, normally I would use my Weber Kettle. Instead, I was given this small rectangular thing that had a glass window in the front of the hood for easy inspection. I figured it was just a challenge and with some effort it could be done.
When barbecuing a turkey you must use the indirect heat method, which means you put a drip pan under the bird, with charcoal surrounding it. As the drippings are great for basting the bird the drip pan must have some sturdy sides so it can catch them. Bust the results are great.
Another issue when barbecuing is that every hour you need to add more charcoal to keep the heat going. This barbecue wasn't going to make life easy, but there were plenty of hands around, so I figured it wouldn't be much trouble.
It was a rainy day, so I set the barbecue on the patio, under the fiberglass and wood cover. Fired up the charcoal, got the temp up, and put the bird on the grill . . . so far so good.
An hour passed and it was time to add more charcoal and retrieve drippings from the pan to use for basting.
As I said, this barbecue wasn't going to make these tasks easy as I had to actually remove the grill in order to get to the drippings and add the new charcoal.
The plan was a friend would lift the turkey off the grill and I would quickly lift the grill enough to add the charcoal then get the turkey baster to suck up the juices. This shouldn't take more than a minute.
So, my buddy picks up the bird, I lift the grill and add the charcoal, this is working great. My buddy puts the bird back on the grill while we prepare for part two, retrieving the drippings.
The turkey is lifted again and I go in with the baster. Now, if you have ever used a baster you might remember that frequently when you suck juices into it, some will shoot out while you attempt to get the thing vertical. Well, that happened here.
A little juice squirted out and hit the hot coals. Immediately a huge flame erupted, which actually ignited whatever juice was still in the drip pan. We figured we would just put the turkey back on the grill and close the hood. The lack of oxygen would take care of the flames.
Nice theory.
Remember the glass inspection window? Well, that thing blew out pretty much as soon as the hood closed. Flames came shooting out searing the wood and beginning to melt the fiberglass roof.
Eventually the grease drippings burned away and the flames receded. I opened the hood to see what was left of the bird.
To say that the outer skin of the turkey was charred would be putting it mildly. However, when we pealed that off we were pleasantly surprised to discover that the inner meat was pretty moist and quite succulent.
The stuffing wasn't exactly what I had planned on, but the bird was pretty damn good. Total cooking time for a 20 pound turkey was about 65 minutes.
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