Cold smoke, then hot smoke turkey?

[jrnewton]

The last few years I have gotten a fresh turkey for Thanksgiving, Wet brined for two days, then smoked on my stick-burner. This year, I am thinking about doing the brine, then cold smoking for 10-12 hours, putting back in the fridge for 2 days or so, then putting on the smoker to cook. Just curious if this sounds like a good idea or not, and if I would gain any “smokiness” in the flavor. Suggestions?

[Jonathon]

jrnewton I’ve never done that before, if you were planning on doing it I might suggest either an injection and then holding it in a cover brine for at least 24 hours or a longer hold time. Reason being that since you aren’t going to be doing any thermal processing you want to make sure that it is perfectly cured.

I am going to talk to a few people here and will update this post later.

[Jonathon]

jrnewton I spoke with our application specialist and he said if it stays below 40° then it will be fine but you’ll have to find a way to make sure that you keep it under 40°, and thats not just internal temp, that’s on the skin and everywhere between. So, if it’s cold where you are and you have a way to add smoke without heat then go for it, but I wouldn’t even trust something like the Flip Professional Smoke Box, you’ll want something where the heat source is totally separated and you’ll need to do it on a cold day.

[jrnewton]

Thank you for the reply!! That should not be a problem, as I am in Michigan, where it has not exactly been warm lately. I have the A-Maze-In maze, so if I put that in the firebox of my offset, I should be good to go. I have various Thermoworks thermometers, so I may do a test run to see how the temperature works out. Thanks again, I have the “hot smoking” down pretty good, but since I received your catalog, and have poked around this site, I am getting excited and more and more ready to try my hand at brats and snack sticks soon. I will report back how all this worked out after Thanksgiving!

[Jonathon]

jrnewton Glad we could help, no matter how things turn out please take some pics and let us see!