Cooking my turkey - need advice!

[Junkmanme]

I smoked 2 turkeys at the same time for this past Thanksgiving.

One was smoked in an upright smoker (which I normally use for smoking).

The other was smoked in a "side firebox" smoker like the one you have pictured. (The turkey took MUCH LONGER in the "side firebox" smoker. I finally added some smoking wood to the inside of it beneath the turkey to finish it off and get the temperature up to the safe temperature which was 160 F ---some people prefer 165 F...OK. )

It was very cold and snowy here when I smoked those 2 turkeys. Both came out GREAT...but the one in the "side-firebox" took a couple of hours longer than the other one (both were 18 lb. turkeys).

-Junkmanme-

P.S. "pdpatch" gave some good advice !

 

[Frosty]

So we put the bird on the grill... temp outside got up to 36F, but the winds that were supposed to be 9 mph were 22 gusting to 33 mph instead. The smoker wanted to stay around 170, we were able to get it up to 210 at one point but it didn't stay there for long. Finally, after about 4 hours of fighting it, we brought the bird in to finish in the oven. I set the oven at 250, inserted the temperature probe, and let it go for about 3.5 more hours. Surprising, the grill didn't get up to temp, but the bird was 145 degrees when I stuck the oven probe in. Lovely pink color the whole way through, tender, juicy, and the flavor was just amazing! I definately need to do that again... when it's warmer out. Thank you for all of the advice, I really appreciate it!