Cider Brined Barbecue Turkey

hey everybody i'm chef tom with atbbq.com and this is the cider brine barbecue turkey but today we're gonna put a barbecue twist on your holiday bird with this cider brined barbecue turkey but truth be told this is a recipe that's good year round it just so happens the holidays are coming up we're going to start with a whole bird prepare spatchcock style which means cutting out the backbone it's going to get a good long soak and an apple cider based brine and then after it has some time to dry out we're going to smoke it on the offset for that truly authentic wood smoked barbecue experience what we have here is about a 14 pound turkey which is really in the sweet spots what i like i like to have a turkey that's between 12 and 16 pounds i find that they they cook quickly they stay tender and juicy that's kind of my preference and i'll cook two of them in that range if i'm looking to feed a lot of people over cooking one really big one the other thing to really look out for is how it's been treated if you can find a fresh bird awesome i know that's not always an option so if you're buying a frozen bird just pay attention to the packaging it's going to tell you what they've done to it it's going to tell you how much stuff they've added to it in the form of some sort of solution or injection or whatever they're going to call it it'll say less than five percent whatever added to it and that's ideal the lower that number the better so i'm going to go ahead and start from the bottom this is where i'm more most comfortable good pair of shears you gotta have this to get this job done because you're gonna do some cutting along these bones i'm always trying to make sure i leave that little bit of oyster meat in there right along the backbone because that's good stuff so i'm just gonna hug this backbone all the way up to the neck and flip it around and go right back the other way you may run into a little trouble spot right here and if you do what i like to do is come at it from the other direction what you're hitting is that joint and once you come at it from the other direction you can actually see what you're doing and pop it out usually it's going to find its its spot where it wants to break open so that right there that's kind of step one of spatchcocking this you can absolutely save put it in your turkey stock to help make your gravy from here what i like to do is i'll take my shears right along the breastbone and give it just a little bit of a snip it's right there at the edge just enough to help break this open you want to break that so that it all lays nice and flat now from here it's kind of up to you how much trimming you want to do as you can see this side right here is kind of already opened up i like to take all of this out i'll take some of these ribs out just because there's less picking around bones to do later and i'm just going to take out any of this stuff that we weren't really going to eat anyway there's not much meat in here it's mostly just connective tissues may find yourself this bone that's connected alongside the backbone you can slide your knife right underneath it and take it out or you can leave it in to be honest it doesn't hurt to leave it in but again it's something you don't have to worry about picking around later if you don't want to and that also is going to be right there at that joint this just depends on where exactly along the backbone you're cutting how much of that is going to be left behind you're not going to do it wrong don't worry about it because you can always clean it up later or just cook it the way it is it's going to be fun i'm going to go ahead and do the exact same thing to the other side making sure that i don't lose my skin here just this kind of this flap this extra tissue that we want to get out and then right here in between this thigh and the ribs that's where we come in just kind of follow the contour of the breast right up to the edge and again sliding the knife underneath that bone to take it out this is the one that will pop at the joint cleaned all that up we haven't lost any meat there just taken out the bone and now look at this you really got all this access to that meat underneath there now right up here you're going to find these bones that stick out you may have already cut alongside and cut them out and that's fine if you do again this is a thing you can leave there if you want it's not going to hurt but just to make things more accessible i'll cut along the side of them peel them back and then you may just need to use your knife to kind of cut it out because it also comes together at a joint down there that pulls right out you'll want to be careful as you're tugging on this thing if you pull from too high it's going to snap and i've cut my finger on that enough times to know that it's not something you want to do so get your leverage from down low you can yank that right out and then one last bit of trim in here i want to do is i'm going to take this wishbone out this allows you to kind of just slice right through the breasts without worrying about any bones the wishbone is in a y right here meets down at the center so i'll feel around for that hard spot that wishbone slip my knife right underneath and then slide it right out to the edge then you can follow that down to the bottom and just twist that thing out all right now that bird is spatchcocked now with the bird all trimmed up we're ready to mix up our apple cider brine now the bulk of this brine is going to be this apple cider base and then we're going to make this real easy we're using the sweetwater spice this is a brine bath it's smoked apple spice so it's base also is apple but then it's got all that salt brown sugar it's all concentrated in here with some really great flavors some chilies you've got some warming spices all things that go great both with the holidays and with barbecue and with apple juice or apple cider so we're going to mix this up super simple this is all a part of our cider brine turkey kit which you can check out at atbbq.com make it really easy for you so we'll go ahead and start with a gallon of apple cider and this recipe will actually do up to a gallon and a half of liquid for these two jars but a gallon should be just enough to cover this bird we're going to empty each one of these in here and like i said it's a concentrate it's nice and thick so that's why we're diluting it with the cider and then i'm just going to get a little bit of water in here because i want to rinse all that out utilize all of that liquid that's in there do the same thing with the second bottle give all that a whisk so super easy no need to heat it up you can mix it right there cool or at room temp and the birds ready to go in we're gonna go in breast first legs on top the spatchcock makes this really easy it actually fits into these spaces better with less brine we just want to make sure that we get this fully submerged for the brine time and we'll lock this plate in place to keep it under the liquid so throw the lid on this we're going to stick this in the fridge i go an hour and a half per pound so 14 pound bird we're talking 21 hours now lucky for us yesterday i went ahead and put a bird in the brine we're going to pull that one out right now move on to the next step pulling the brined bird out of the brine now been soaking since yesterday let me go ahead and try and support those legs as i bring them out too so we don't tear anything you have a tear in the skin but it's going to be fine that kind of stuff happens quite often so what's going on now is if you wanted to you could go ahead and smoke this bird the next day but chances are you're never really going to get this skin to be quite as nice as it could be unless you let it dry out first so we're transferring this to a wire rack i'm going to take off as much of the moisture from this skin as i can and we're just going to let this thing sit open in the fridge overnight one more day i know it seems like a long process a three day process for this smoked bird but if you're going to put the time into doing it right this is one of those steps you don't want to skip and that's really pretty specific to these smoking temperatures we're going to be cooking this at 275 to 300 where the skin just doesn't render out as easily as it does up in like that 350 to 425 range one of these little tricks i like to do to keep the wings off the breasts just throw a toothpick in there to keep that open i may be fooling myself that this is a really important thing to do but something i've done for a while now just to keep it all the way open so now into the fridge overnight luckily once again i've got one i started yesterday it's been a three-day process but that means we can do this all in one day for you guys i'm gonna pull that one out of the fridge and that's what we're gonna smoke today but before we actually get into seasoning that let's fire up the grill so today we're cooking on the yoder smokers loaded wichita offset smoker we're going to start off with a chimney full of our kamado joe big block charcoal just go ahead and get a little fire starter started underneath it and we'll just light this up right here in the fire box so this is going to be our coal bed this is what's going to really give us that heat on the bottom we're going to start rolling logs over on top of it though and we'll be smoking with a combination of applewood and pecan wood today trying to stabilize that temperature between 275 and 300. so here's our bird with the skin that's already been dried out as you can see just not a lot of moisture on the surface and that's great because you know cooking at these lower temperatures we want that skin to still render even if it's not going to get super crisp it should be bite through tender at this point though what we want to do is i want to go ahead and get this thing seasoned up so we're going to do that by putting our barbecue rub both underneath and on top of the skin so just work in the hands underneath the skin try not to tear anything you're separating it but you're not pulling it all the way away so what that does is it gives you that gap now where you've got access right there to the flesh go ahead and take your barbecue rub today we're using one of my favorite barbecue rubs the plowboys yardbird go right underneath that skin you can work from both directions and then we're going to do the same thing with these legs and thighs here just pulling that skin back get some seasoning right there on the meat and then putting it right back the way we found it then i'll go ahead and flip this over to make sure that we can get some seasoning on the back side pretty much anywhere you can see meat you want to make sure that you get a little bit of seasoning on there we'll flip this back over we'll go ahead and start getting the skin so you can kind of see this even level how it's all kind of on one level now these breasts are pressed down these thighs will kind of sit like this while it's cooking and that's what makes this cook so evenly and because it's all on one level instead of like all rolled up into one big ball as it was when we started it's also going to cook quite a bit faster even low and slow on the offset these wings i'm going to go ahead and tuck them back you just push them under and that kind of holds them in a little bit tighter obviously they're smaller so they cook quicker than everything else that helps slow that down just a little bit any spots that i've messed up along the way go ahead and touch that up now this is the pan that this was sitting in in the refrigerator so it's got some juices under it i don't want to collect these juices necessarily i'm going to go ahead and get rid of this we've got a fresh sheet pan and we are going to cook the bird on the sheet pan today for the sole purpose of being able to collect all the juices that drip out of it while it's cooking because those juices are going to have a ton of flavor and great for moisturizing especially that white meat in the end so that charcoal is looking good we're going to go ahead and dump this out right along the back side of our firebox we're going to keep that fire isolated on the back half of our firebox so that we can burn it really hot we'll go ahead and put a little pecan a little bit of apple in there and then we're going to have one more that we're going to keep right up front to keep hot that way when we roll it over later it just instantly ignites so this way we can control the airflow burn a hot fire get a clean smoke the entire cook that hasn't taken long but our grill has come up to temperature we're eating 300 at the right side 250 on the left and it's a little too hot to hold your hand on there long so we're ready to put this bird on we're just going to go right here dead center of the smoker and i'm going to go ahead and throw our meter plus in here so we can keep track of the temperature i'm aiming for the deepest part of the breast meat and this will let us know what's going on temperature wise both inside the bird and in the pit well this is what two hours into our cook looks like we're getting some nice browning on the bird looking at about 130 on the internal right now i'm going to go ahead and spin this around just make sure that it's kind of browning evenly i imagine we've got another hour or so left and while we're at it we'll go ahead and feed the fire so go ahead and put another log over here keeping that fire small and hot another one to warm up and then something i like to do throughout a cook add a couple chunks a blunt just to help keep that coal bed going well turkey's been on for almost five hours now come up to temp 155 in the deepest part of the breast it's going to continue to cook a little bit with carryover cooking once we pull it off so let's go ahead and get this thing off the smoker so we go ahead and take our thermometer out now man you can see just a nice crispy skin there even at that lower temperature soaked up lots of smoke during our almost five hour cook this just needs some time to rest for that temperature to continue coming up and all those juices to redistribute throughout the meat so i'm going to throw this into our cambro at home you could put it into a cooler while the turkey is resting we're going to put together a really simple pomegranate barbecue sauce for dipping our turkey into so this is super easy we're going to take one cup of pomegranate juice which has got this great flavor to it that actually reminds me a lot of cranberry in this in this application which i was kind of surprised about when i first tested this recipe a couple years back we did something pretty similar with a cranberry barbecue sauce and the pomegranate's fantastic as well [Music] our barbecue sauce that we're adding is the firebug mild so it is a mild fruity barbecue sauce that's also got some blackberries and raspberries in it but it's also got a nice little black pepper kick to it so we're going to combine these two things the sweetness of the barbecue sauce the tartness of the pomegranate juice and just reduce this down to kind of a thicker consistency that we can then dip the turkey into all right the bird is rested the sauce is reducing so i'm going to go ahead and start to break this down and one of the great things about the spatchcock method is that leg and thigh comes off real easy and you want to separate the two of those you're just going to go right in that crease in between the two of them pop that open see that ball joint right there you're going to go right in between so now you've got your leg which you know you can serve just by itself and then this dark meat oh that looks good this stuff will just shred apart and boy look at the juice already that's looking beautiful when you get this stuff cooking at that same rate as the breast it's going to end up cooking to a higher temperature which is ideal for the dark meat you want this stuff at 175 or higher while that breast finishes up more around 160 165 that's when this stuff gets really velvety so we're just going to shred up some of this dark meat here before we move on to the white meat man the the smoke aroma coming off of this is fantastic there's a slight sweetness to it as well which has got to be that apple cider base as well as our brine now for the breast you can kind of come in here and divide these by two and you can carve that right out of there just going right along the side of the breastbone in the middle just follow it down along what was the rib cage we'll cut that off of the wing and there you have your white meat we get some really nice slices out of this here now we've carved this off the breast to slice it but you also could just slice it right off of the body let's take a look here real quick before we go back like just glistening with juice that's what you're looking for you want that white meat to be plenty juicy i gotta get a bite oh yeah smoke for days plenty of salt to it that's even the interior i'm not getting to the exterior yet where all that flavor and rub is on the outside but that salt's really penetrated during that brine time flavor throughout you can actually take some of those juices that you've collected from the pan and go ahead and brush that right on top lots of flavor in there go ahead and take the other half of this bird apart pretty much just the skin that's uh keeping that leg and thigh holding on go ahead and cut around this wing here so that wing will separate out and then what you've got here is your breast and since we've already removed that wishbone you can actually slice right down on the breast through the front and then just take those pieces out again just glistening with juice i don't want to squeeze that too much and lose all that i'm going to pour off some of this sauce now that it's reduced down kind of back down to almost like barbecue sauce consistency and this is my favorite part this dark meat right here so i'm going to go ahead and load it up with some of that sauce and get a taste oh yeah so the sauce i mean that's the cherry on top the smoked turkey's fantastic we put a lot of thyme into this bird and it's paid off for sure the flavor is fantastic so smoky from the stick burner but that sauce that just goes the extra mile and it you know takes this barbecue thing and also ties in kind of the fall autumn holiday thing with the pomegranate fantastic flavors well thank you guys so much for watching be sure to check out atbbq.com for all the products featured in today's video including that turkey kit if you enjoy the recipe hit that subscribe button if you have any questions or comments if there's anything you'd like to see me cook let me know in the comment section down below and let's be good to one another for more recipes tips and techniques head over to atbbq.com the sauce 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Channel: allthingsbbq

Views: 102,749

Keywords: atbbq, allthingsbbq, all things bbq, all things barbecue, bbq, barbecue, turkey, spatchcock, smoked, smoke, smoker, yoder, yoder smokers, loaded wichita, wichita, offset, stick burner, thanksgiving, cider, apple, apples, apple cider, brine, chef tom, the sauce, brining, brined, briner bucket

Id: d3Wb7a2edLQ

Length: 22min 37sec (1357 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021