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Smoking Turkey - Step by Step

By Derrick Riches, About.com

6 of 10

Placing the Turkey - Smoking Turkey

Placing Turkey - Smoking Turkey

Placing Turkey - Smoking Turkey

Regarding BBQ Inc.
Place your turkey in the smoker where the smoke can flow evenly around all sides. It should be placed squarely over your drip pan so you can catch all the drippings (and help keep your smoker clean). If your smoker is an offset model or otherwise puts out more heat on one side than the other then you are going to need to rotate the turkey ever two hours to make sure the bird cooks evenly.

I smoke my turkey, breast side up through the whole smoking time. If you choose you may flip the bird over during the cooking time, but I haven't found an advantage to doing this.

When oven roasting a bird it is a good idea to cover the breasts with foil during part of the cooking time. This is to prevent the skin from burning or drying out. Because smoking takes place at a lower temperature this won't be necessary.

With the turkey on the smoker, now is a good time to clean everything to prevent cross contamination with anything that has come in contact with the bird.

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