Barbecue Thanksgiving Turkey | Chuds BBQ

what's going on everybody welcome back to chud's bbq my name is bradley robinson and today i'm going to show you how i made this beautiful smoky crispy skin herby thanksgiving turkey with bacon stuffing and homemade gravy gaming up thanksgiving is upon us folks and as a cook on youtube i am required by law to show you how i prepare a thanksgiving turkey that being said i don't plan on reinventing the wheel here but one thing's for certain and that is that it is going to be delicious just a little prick dude juicy this is a turkey nothing too fancy here just your standard butter ball from the old grocery store pat it dry and we are simply going to open it up make sure there's no ice in there see if there's anything hiding in here hello how you doing turkey neck save that for some stock later on just get it cleaned up always in the neck here there's usually a little compartment as well hello get all the giblets out of there again save that for stock and gravy got ourselves a clean turkey well we're at it i'm going to go through and just take this little tail off right here this is what was holding the legs together snip that off put that in the stockpile what creature is that i don't know this is a 13 pounder i typically get one or two of these depending on the size of the crowd because it's a lot more forgiving to cook two 12 pounders than it is 124. that way if you mess one up you still got the other one but most importantly if you have two different birds that you're cooking they're gonna cook a lot quicker and at the same time you can do two different flavor profiles whether it's two different brines two different rubs throw one on the chut box one on the offset up to you gobble gobble gobble but when it comes to turkeys i always like to use a spatchcock we talked about the spatchcock a few times on the show it's basically when you remove the spine and there's so many good reasons for doing so there's this big hole in the middle it's going to take a lot longer to cook especially if there's chunks of ice in there so dispatch a turkey is real simple just grab yourself a nice pair of poultry shears something heavy duty and we're just going to go right on either side of the tail starting from the bung region and we're just going to go right on either side of the spine going all the way down there some bones are going to crunch through so that's why you want to have a really nice sharp pair of kitchen shears and if you're ever having problems getting through it you can always bust out a cleaver or a heavy chef's knife or something to really get in there the scissors work out just fine the beauty of the spatchcock is that it's going to sit flat which means it's going to cook a lot more evenly it's all going to be one level on the grate and especially on a smoker where the top rack is typically a lot hotter if this thing's sitting six seven inches tall the the breast meat that's on top will cook a lot faster than the thigh meat that's on bottom or however you have it situated so this way everything's gonna cook more evenly it's gonna cook a lot faster because we're taking out some mass we're getting rid of the cavity in the middle and also once you have this your spine removed you can save this for gravy right off the bat so you don't have to wait till everything's done you can get your chicken stock going while the bird is cooking clean this out this is a fully thawed bird still got some ice in there though i bought this a few days ago it's been sitting in the fridge but simply enough that's how you remove a spine while we're at it we'll cut these little at the legs apart here they time together to keep it all in one nice little package and you could cook it just like this although you always have to fold your wing tips folks there's nothing more unappealing to me when i see a bird that's just got these wingtips hanging out tuck them just simply poke them behind it's going to save the ends from burning and it also looks nice and you can cook it just like this but i think that's a really stupid look i don't like the legs splayed out like this i don't like when the legs are up like this i want it to cook evenly so what we're going to do is just put a little cut right in the breastbone here which is going to help us then snap that and then we can pull it all together just like a chicken and that's the proper formation for turkey smoking right there and just like a brisket we kind of got a fatty end and a lean end so we're going to aim this towards the fire just like this and this way heat is going to come right across kind of like those car aerodynamic tests but most importantly now all the skin is facing upwards which is where we want it to be especially on a convective cooker like the one i'm going to use instead of having the thighs be in a different angle or anything like that we're going to have all of the skin exposed to the heat and everything's going to cook real evenly and we're going to get some really nice crispy skin because as you know there's no black rubbery skin on chud's bbq so wings are tucked bird is spatchcocked nice and flat splayed out back side nice and clean when it comes to brining your turkey there are several options first of all you don't have to brine it you could just put a flavorful rub on there and hope for the best two you can use a wet brine which basically requires a five gallon bucket and a whole bunch of fridge space which i've done in the past and it comes out really well and then there's number three which is the dry brine and as you know i'm a big fan of the dry brine when it comes to smoking poultry we're after a nice dry surface to get that really crispy skin and that's where the dry brine really comes in handy and as you can tell this method is all about convenience for the home cook so all the dry brine really is is pre-seasoning the bird with kosher salt so i'm just gonna start on the back side here and just give it a nice heavy sprinkling of this kosher salt and how it works is basically this salt is going to start by drawing moisture out of the bird then that moisture is going to dissolve the remaining salt on the skin creating a natural brine and then that brine on the surface will penetrate back in and it's gonna give us a really nice well-seasoned bird and also the salt's gonna help tenderize the meat a little bit so don't be too shy here cover it in a nice layer of salt and we're gonna let this go for a good few days this is uh wednesday that i'm doing this i'm cooking this on friday you could add extra flavors at this point if you wanted to hit it with some rosemary or some sage or something like that but we're gonna address that in a little bit here all right this bird is all seasoned up now it's time to throw it into the fridge so i'm gonna place it on this haw rack just like this in the fridge uncovered for the next two days you can go two three days really allow time for that salt to penetrate deep into the meat and when all is said and done we'll come back we'll add some more flavor now that our turkey is dry brining in the fridge we've still got several days on our hands before we get to actual cooking and on the big day of thanksgiving i've usually got plenty of people and beers floating around so i like to get as much done ahead of time as possible starting with that turkey spine we just removed as you know in all videos i always tell you to save your bones and extra meat pieces because they go great in a stalk and this is the time of year that it comes in super handy because we are going to make our own stock and make some super tasty gravy and some really good stuffing as you can see i just cleared out my freezer here and i've got some turkey bones some duck bones some pork bones from the ribs and all that good stuff if you wanted to keep it classy you could do all turkey maybe turkey and chicken and make that a poultry stock but today i'm going to make a master stock using all the bones i have in-house to make a really super tasty stock when making a stock you have two options you can just throw all these raw bones in a pot and boil them down skim off all the chud that forms on the top and end up with a nice clear blonde stock or typically you'll see people roasting these or sauteing them in a pot and getting a nice fawn to get that nice mayard flavor on there they have a really rich flavorful brown stalk and that's what we're going to do today but we're not going to be using an oven or a saute pan boot snake nice and toasty we are rocking a solid 300 degrees on this here mini chut box now all we're going to do is throw on all these bones until we have some really nice color on them this is a great step too because this is really gonna help make a super unique flavorful stalk that's gonna make your gravy better than anyone who's using stock out of a carton and it's also a great time to clean out your freezer get all these bones out of there this is smelling so good already we got plenty of turkey on there some duck a little bit of pork so this is gonna be a super flavorful stock but to take it another step further we're also gonna throw on some vegetables i got a white onion some celery and a couple of whole heads of garlic that are cut in half to expose the meat we're gonna get these toasted up as well just a little extra flavor and we'll throw a couple of carrots in the mix too a little mirepoix going on so we're just gonna cook this down for about an hour or so until everything's got some really nice color on it and start building those layers of flavor as you can see brooke what are you doing putting in a weather vein nice weather just keep flipping it don't want anything to burn all right an hour later these things are starting to look real nice some pieces have some really nice color on them smells nice and smoky turkey neck looking good so let's throw them into a pot and get the stock or rolling and we go that beautiful onion boop i need a bigger pot now we're gonna fire it up and fill it on up with water we're just gonna let this come up to a boil once at a rolling boil we're gonna tone this down a little bit here so we don't have anything splashing all over the place we're gonna let this simmer for the next four hours or so three four hours depending on how hot you're going make sure nothing's burning it doesn't reduce down too much but we'll check back in later while we're at it we might as well make this stock a little more thanksgivingy starting with some rosemary thyme sage a couple of bay leaves never hurt also you got some parsley stems on hand and just like any stock you don't need to be using pristine vegetables and cuts of meat for this if you've got an onion that's looking kind of sad or some stems or whatever you got just throw it on in oh i also i found this old bone marrow bone in the in the freezer i already ate all the marrow out of it but might as well throw the bone in there add another animal to the pot it smells fantastic well i'll throw in some peppercorns as well while we're at it it's finally turkey day our turkey is dry brined our stock is made i think it's time to throw it on the pit while we wait for our pit to come up to temperature we're gonna make a compound butter to add some extra flavor and richness to our turkey in this bowl here i'm going to add four sticks aka one pound of softened butter to which we are going to add some dry thyme because i didn't feel like picking it myself fresh rosemary some freshly chopped sage then we'll go in with little pinch of cayenne for chef john some flaky salt for josh weissman and then we're gonna tiny whisk this all together for babs i almost forgot we're gonna throw in some fresh parsley as well after three days of dry brining this turkey is looking dry you can see the skin is nice and tightened up on there no signs of salt anywhere which means you know it all got dissolved into the meat which is a wonderful thing all right to add some more flavor now we are going to take our compound butter that we just made we're going to rub it all over this bad lary just to make it taste even better add some fat to it because turkeys are pretty lean and to do that we're going to try and get our hands in here and go underneath the skin just be careful not to tear it once you have it separated then we're going to go in with the butter butter in big ol scoop smear this all around oh yeah oh yeah this is gonna help the skin get crispy from both sides and while we're at it we're gonna go all over the outside too you never have too much butter when cooking a turkey get some butter all up in there oh god henry one more step before we throw this hair turkey onto the fire and that is we're gonna hit it with a little bit of extra granulated garlic and of course we're gonna go in with some 16 mesh black pepper because this is a texas turkey after all might as well throw a little butter on this side too and some black pepper pepper just need to get this fire a little bit hotter we're aiming for around 300 degrees perfect now that our fire is up to temp it's time to throw on our turkey we're gonna go breath side towards the fire right in the middle of this hyakuka and there we go and again it's all about how you set it down and you don't want the legs too high up on the breast you know the drill we'll come back in a few hours now that our turkey is on the smoker let's talk about sides in my opinion there is a severe lack of bacon on the thanksgiving table so today we're going to change that this is the very bacon that i made in my how to make bacon tutorial told you i'm cleaning out the freezer this time of year bacon i'm simply going to cube this up this is as big or as small as you like we're making bacon stuffing by the way sausage stuffings are pretty popular this time of year so i figured might as well make a bacon one two this toasty cast iron skillet we are gonna add our one pound of bacon oh yeah we're gonna throw in a little dollop of our compound herb butter too or just let this cook on low for a little bit let all that fat render down let the bacon crisp up while we wait for this bacon to cook down let's get everything else we need ready starting with two ribs of celery you can make these as bigger as small as you want bigger they are the crunchier they'll stay also got a white onion we're gonna use about half of it gotta have some sage in your stuffing gotta have some parsley too folks next thing we're gonna do is crack two eggs into a bowl along with our parsley and about one cup of our turkey stock and this is how our turkey stock came out nice and gelatin it's still a little on the loose side which is nice because it's still pourable but as you can see that's the difference between a store-bought stock in a homemade stock you could even take this down even further until it's a super solid jell-o we're gonna whisk all this together make sure all the eggs are broken down very nice over here our bacon is cooking up really nicely releasing a lot of fat which is a good thing we're gonna go in with our veg don't forget the sage i'm gonna throw in a few little rosemary leaves in there as well two cloves of garlic and we just let these cook down for a little bit soften up get to know each other all that good stuff we're gonna transfer this into a big metal bowl yep then we're gonna go in with our stock egg parsley mixture just gonna get that all in cooper todd and then we're gonna go in with a whole bunch of dry bread cubes this is about a pound and a half and we're just gonna get on in there with our hands and make sure everything is thoroughly combined all these bread cubes absorb all of the stock and eggs and as you mix all the bread will start to hydrate in the stock and it'll shrink up a little bit this is just some white bread cubed up and dried out i use about two and a half cups of homemade stock to get to this texture total that is including the stuff i mixed in with the eggs nice and saturated but still individual pieces of bread now we're going to grease up this cast iron pan with some of our herb compound butter from earlier and we're going to go in with our stuffing now i'm going to wrap this here 10 inch cast iron pan up with foil and toss it on the pit the foil on this pan is really going to help trap in moisture during the first part of this cook which is going to give us a nice tender stuffing ow jesus carl what are you playing badminton over there you lost your shuttlecock all right we're two and a half hours into this here turkey cook and it is looking nice and golden we're about 45 50 minutes into this bad larry cook and they're both reading the correct temperatures i threw this log in front to make sure these wingtips didn't get too burned but they're looking nice and brown to me the breast meat is right at 160 degrees the thigh meets right around 180 degrees which is exactly where we want it to be probably could have gone a little cooler on the turkey breast but i think we'll be all right and this is about 155 degrees internal so i'm going to take the foil off of this and let it continue to cook and brown up we're going to pull this guy off to rest toasty [Music] while we wait for our turkey to rest and our stuffing to finish crisp spin up we got just enough time to make some gravy to this sauce pan we are going to add one stick of butter now that this butter is nice and melted you can see i let mine toast a little bit not quite a brown butter but adding a little extra flavor we're going to go in with half a cup of all-purpose flour it's making a real basic roux right now make sure we're cooking out all that starchy raw flour taste and this is really up to you how far you want to take your roux you can let it stay blonde like this you could take it all the way to a dark roux right about there is looking perfect to me so now i'm gonna go in with some of our turkey stock just a little bit at first get that all mixed up and then we'll go in with the rest also earlier today i took one of those quarts of turkey stock and i reduced the whole court down to just that much which is really going to concentrate the flavor in there we're going to just take this little flavor puck and add that in there and that's going to help give us a really rich flavorful gravy at this point we're just going to bring this up to a boil to let all the flour gelatinize and make sure this is nice and thick but while we're at it let's go in and add a little bit more flavor these are all the giblets the heart the liver all that stuff that was stored in the neck cavity i cooked those along with the stalk and then set them aside till right now we'll also go in and throw in another sprig of thyme and rosemary a little bit more onion another head of garlic throw in a little shot of soy sauce because kenji lopez told me to oh here we go up to a simmer once it's at a boil that's about as thick as it's gonna get so now you can decide how thick you want it based on how much it reduces and that is looking good to me nice and thick coats the back of a spoon nicely this is where you taste it for seasoning i'm gonna go in with a little pinch of salt as well as some freshly cracked black pepper all there's left to do is send it through a strainer into our little gravy boat here more little pro tip for you if your turkey's been resting for a long time while you're waiting for everyone to get ready and it gets a little cold take your remaining herb butter and get it nice and hot right before serving that'll help crisp up the skin warm it up a bit and of course add some lovely buttery herbaceousness to your turkey and there we have it folks a beautiful smoked turkey some delicious bacon stuffing with a wonderful homemade gravy with some of the best stock you'll ever have i think it's time to dive in gotta have some cranberry sauce but come on folks i highly recommend smoking a turkey this year just because it frees up the oven for all your other sides one of the best parts about spatchcocking your turkey is that it makes it super easy to carve because the legs are just held on by a little bit of skin come off super easily then if you flip it over you can kind of see where they connect right there and just whoop drumstick beautiful not a problem when it comes to the wings i typically just pull them out oh juicy one right now kind of break the joint find where it connects out it comes the skin on the backside here super crispy oh my goodness it's so good next up we're gonna take the breasts off of the carcass you could slice it off like traditional style but that's uh you're cutting with the grain if you do that it's a lot better to just find the breastbone hug it as close as possible and remove it entirely just peel it back dry and uh keep as much meat on the breast off the bone as possible and then just kind of drag your tip until you get the rib cage off and there you have it beautiful super juicy very tender and possibly tender then what we can do is simply just slice it up try and keep that skin intact as much as possible but again so juicy that breast meat looks so good let's see if it's uh pull apart tender oh i'd say so yup yup gotta love a dry brine salted all the way through meat super tender super juicy oh skin crispy all right brooke are you ready for one of many thanksgivings yes so we got our thighs we got our drums we got our breast meat we got some bacon stuffing we got a delicious gravy we got some cranberry sauce dig in just go right for the cranberry the one thing i didn't make looks amazing my favorite part of thanksgiving is like you basically just make that like one bite with everything on it kind of thing oh yes bacon stuffing check oh oh we call that a happy whoops that's a sad one damn it god first time it carl um is this the first time a fork has made an appearance on the channel possibly i mean it's not necessary yeah that grape is good that crispy skin too hold on let me do another chef john reference fork don't lie all right i gotta go to work cheers it's good actually how's this this smokey flavor it's a very subtle smoke highly recommend it yes want some turkey for the road i'm good i know it's going to be here when i get back you say that me and penelope it is really good though okay bye thanks for the turk have fun at work i'm just gonna keep eating i don't care a little cranberry on there this bacon stuffing though tell you what that's the real winner here little breast meat little stuffing lots of gravy crandleberry oh oh peepee how can we only do this once a year i always say that in the beginning of the meal and at the end of the meal i realized why hmm gravy for me people you deserve some gravy you've been smelling this for four days bacon gravy though do it in the gravy i mean stuffing and don't give me any of that it's technically dressing all right y'all and that is it that is my version of how to smoke a thanksgiving turkey i really hope you give these recipes and techniques a try this year because it really is nothing better than a properly smoked turkey if you give these recipes a try be sure to tag me on instagram chad's bbq i'd love to see what you all are cooking of all the recipes in the description of this video while you're down there drop a comment let me know what you want to see me cook next be sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel it helps me out so much thank you so much for watching and i hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving and until the next time i see you please go cook something outside peace now i gotta go get a few more turkeys for actual thanksgiving later

Channel: Chuds BBQ

Views: 324,283

Keywords: Holiday, Whole Turkey, Smoked, Barbecue, Backyard BBQ

Id: x_OffSIspzE

Length: 24min 21sec (1461 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 24 2020