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Been busy this morning. Packaged up 9 lbs of pork, sliced and packed 2 briskets and put 4 racks of spares on. I decided not to trim the ribs, give the customer more meat and is less work for me! :D

Not sure if the turkeys are going to get cooked today, they're still a bit hard.

 
John A. said:
Everything looks great Larry, very nice. I'd be skeered to death to cook on a wood deck like that. :shock:

Little common sense goes a long way I think.......... I've been cooking up on the deck with offsets, WSM's, Kettles and Primos for years and (knock on wood) have never had an issue. If I'm not sure when I'm done I'll douse the area down with water.
 
Here's the pic's of the 4 racks of untrimmed spares from yesterday. I sauced them pretty heavy at the request of the customer. :shock: I cut each rack in half for reheating purposes and vacuum sealed and they're in the freezer. Now onto the turkeys.......................

 
Let me start the turkey part of this post by saying, I hate using frozen turkeys. I say this every year and each and every year it pisses me off even more than the previous year. I bought these turkeys on Friday and they have sat in the garage fridge since then. I pulled them out this morning opened it up and the damn thing is still a piece of ice. No problem, I did the quick thaw and got them thawing away. Here's my beef. WTF do the butchers get the gargantuan turkey necks they shove into the cavity of the birds? 2 of the 4 birds I have had what looked to be ostrich necks crammed inside of them and were a royal pain in the ass to get out! So that started me drinking at 11:30, which I swore after the way I felt this morning that I was not ever drinking again. Anyways.

So I got the birds all thawed and then I ran into my two old buddies...................my neglected WSM's. I loaded them both up with 1/2 ring of Kingsford and 4 big hickory chunks, lit the center with my hose torch, let the vents wide open until 175*, then shut the bottom three down 3/4. Well they're just as reliable as they always have been, they both settled in at 255* & 257* and are chugging along perfectly. Man I really truly miss cooking on them. I even ran over the door on one while I was getting them ready, so I really mangled it. I got some aluminum foil and tucked it around the door and voila, good as new! So I have one turkey on each WSM and 2 on the Primo XL. All the turkeys will have the breast lobes removed and vac sealed, legs removed and vac sealed and the thigh meat and wings removed and vac sealed.

 
Larry, I'm going to smoke a 12# turkey tomorrow. How long does it take for one of these birds to get done.....just so I can judge my start time.
Are you sure you were pulling on it's neck?
 
Rag said:
Larry, I'm going to smoke a 12# turkey tomorrow. How long does it take for one of these birds to get done.....just so I can judge my start time.
Are you sure you were pulling on it's neck?

The birds I cooked today were in the 14lb range and they took about 4.5 hours at 250-260* to get the breast to 165*.

Griff said:
Larry, what's up with the wood skewers in the bird in the second photo ?

Griff it was to hold the skin down to cover up the breast meat. The way they butcher the turkeys ruins the piece of breast skin.
 
Turkeys are done, quartered and solidifying in the freezer before I vacuum seal. I took advantage of the WSM's being lit and ready to go and threw on two 2.5lb London Broils to begin the reverse sear, then onto the Primo Jr. for the finishing sear. This has been a long hard weekend, I'm worn out, but got everything done I planned on doing.

 
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