Waiting For The Sun!
Something I hear a reasonable amount is “I haven’t barbecued much this year as it hasn’t really been sunny”. As someone that not only enjoys
Hopefully you have read or seen Part One which is how to wet brine the turkey crown, well it has been brining in the fridge for 24 hours and it is now time to prep the crown for seasoning and of course smoking.
After removing the crown from the brine drain well and rinse the crown off in cold water to remove the salty solution and any particles that may burn. Place it on your clean surface and pat it dry making sure to get into the nooks and crannies so that the crown can crisp up in the smoker. Not that the skin will be too crispy as we are smoking this to add flavour and to keep the crown moist and tender. I tend to use a neutral oil on the skin as a binder for two reasons, it adds a bit of crispness to the skin and also the rub adheres well to the crown.
Once the neutral oil has been applied I added the rub and since it is Christmas (well a Christmas dish) I used Angus & Oinks Meat Tinsel as it seemed rude not to. You can smell the cinnamon and citrus in the rub but as we are smoking this they will be very subtle on the crown itself.
Whilst all this was going on I had my Monolith Junior kamado light and reaching temperature. As you will see on the video the temperature is well past the smoking temp when I close the vents down but by the time the heat deflector and crown are added it settles nicely at 140 Celsius. On this cook I didn’t add any smoking wood as there is plenty going on with the brine and the meat tinsel and what is yet to come, the butter drizzle!
Making the butter drizzle is a doddle, I was going to use a mini skillet to melt it and have it by the crown but this was a big crown and there was little room so on this occasion I put half a stick of butter into a Pyrex dish and nuke’d it! I then added some dried herbs, the same as I used in the brine, as that’s what I had in the shop and after 45 minutes of the crown receiving smoke (after all we want that beautiful mild smoky flavour) I started drizzling the butter mix onto the crown. Why do this? It adds moisture and delicious flavour to the turkey which we all know can be a bit on the bland side. I did this around every 20 minutes until the crown reached and internal temperature of 72 Celsius. I check the internal temperature regularly with my ThermoPro Instant Read Thermometer to ensure that I don’t overcook the crown and end up with a dry crown.
At this point I took the crown off the Monolith into a washed out and clean foil tray, wrapped it with aluminium foil and put is in our Yeti Cooler to finish off. Again I hear you asking why I did that. Any protein (I hate that expression but) when rested will draw back in juices and therefor flavour and whilst doing this is will raise to around 75 Celsius, the ideal temperature for turkey / chicken breast without it drying out. I rested the crown for 40 minutes before taking it out and taking the most delicious bit off the breast.
Hopefully you will see on the video that it was indeed moist, tender, smoky, delicious and just about perfect, it definitely is something that you will enjoy on Christmas Day rather than dread if your turkey is going to be dry.
Next week we are dry brining (dry ish) a whole turkey and smoking it in the Traeger Ironwood 650!
Something I hear a reasonable amount is “I haven’t barbecued much this year as it hasn’t really been sunny”. As someone that not only enjoys
As you can imagine I get asked this question a few times in a week and in fairness for the person just getting into their coffee it is a fair question.
So with the introduction of The Coffee Shack to The Barbecue Shack business I thought I would run a quick demo on making an Americano on our Gaggia Classic demo machine.
“What?” I hear you cry. “Why?” I also hear people crying. Why not I say. My Father-in-Law insists on buying meat from dubious sources and bringing it home for me to deal with, almost like a challenge!
Something I hear a reasonable amount is “I haven’t barbecued much this year as it hasn’t really been sunny”. As
As you can imagine I get asked this question a few times in a week and in fairness for the person just getting into their coffee it is a fair question.
So with the introduction of The Coffee Shack to The Barbecue Shack business I thought I would run a quick demo on making an Americano on our Gaggia Classic demo machine.