Grill-Smoked Honey-Brined Wild Turkey - Favorite Wild Game Recipes - Favorite Wild Game Recipes

Being a fan of the wild turkey, I’ve searched far and near to find different ways of cooking the tasty thing. This is pretty much hands-down the best way I’ve ever found. Done as many as three birds at one time for big crowds (on 3 grills!), and have requests to bring it to parties and other events. I’ve only done it on gas grills, but it works essentially the same on any grill. 3 burner gas models seem to work best for tinkering. It’s Alton Brown’s with a few tweaks if that tells you anything!

GRILL SMOKED HONEY-BRINED TURKEY

-1 gallon warm/hot water

-1 pound kosher salt

-2 quarts vegetable broth (use veg. boullion cubes, can be hard to find….when you do, pick up 2 packs)

-1 pound honey (you can sub brown sugar at the rate of 2 cups/lb, but I like to do 1/2 lb of honey and 2 cups of brown sugar to keep the ingredients a bit cheaper)

-1 (7-pound) bag of ice

-1 (15 to 20-pound) turkey, with giblets removed

-Vegetable oil, for rubbing turkey

Combine the hot water and the salt in a brine container. Cooler works well in the summer to retain coolness, but I use a sealed food-grade plastic 5-gal bucket with a tight-fitting lid. Stir until the salt dissolves. Stir in the vegetable broth and the honey. Add the ice and stir. Keep the brining turkey under 50 if at all possible all night. If your 5 gallon bucket fits in the fridge, that’s probably best. A cooler with enough ice (you may have to add a bit more) works second-best.

Use injector to put brine in breast, up to 20 pokes per breast. Place the turkey in the brine, breast side up, and cover with cooler lid. After injecting brine overnight, a total of up to 12 hours. Not too long with the injected brine or it’ll get way salty!

Remove the turkey from the brine and dry thoroughly next day. Rub the bird thoroughly with the vegetable oil, but don’t pile it on. Too much oil dripping everywhere and you’ll have massive flare-ups.

Heat the grill to 400 degrees F.

Using a double thickness of heavy-duty aluminum foil, build a smoke bomb. Place a cup of wood chips (my favorite is black cherry) in the center of the foil and gather up the edges, making a small pouch. Make sure to soak chips in water up to 20 minutes before you put in pouch. I’ve also used hickory, apple, and mesquite with success. Mesquite was the strongest of the smokey flavors, need to really like smokey taste for the mesquite. Apple was almost too mild for me. Hickory is medium smokey.

Completely seal pouch and poke holes in the foil with a fork. Set this directly on the charcoal or on the metal bar over the gas flame. Set the turkey over indirect heat (use foil pan under grate over 3rd burner with 3rd burner off), insert a probe thermometer into the thickest part of the breast meat, and set the alarm for 160 degrees F. Close the lid and cook for 1 hour. I like to put down Reynold’s non-stick on the grill grate to keep that thing from fusing to the grill grate!

After 1 hour check the bird; if the skin is golden brown, cover with aluminum foil and continue cooking. Also, after 1 hour, replace wood chips with second cup.

Once the bird reaches 160 degrees F, remove from grill, cover with aluminum foil, and allow to rest for at least 1/2 hour, up to 1 hour. Carve and serve.

It’s alot of work to set-up, brine, and figure out, but I’ve never had turkey any better.

***Notes – Setting up the grill is half the trick. Whatever you do, use a foil pan under the bird to provide the indirect heat. I like a 3 burner setup with bird over the 3rd burner turned off, and the other two going to achieve the 400. Keep the furthest burner from the turkey the highest, closest as low as possible to achieve 400.

Drawback to this plan is that drippings/oil collect and can really flare up. Constantly monitor that first hour to avoid flare-ups. Use only as much oil as needed to generously cover the skin of the turkey. Dripping off is way too much.

For carving/presentation/serving, lots of folks like to be able to sort through breast meat and dark meat. I do two pans for that. I cut out the breasts all in one big chunk, then for slicing, put each breast skin side up on a cutting board and slice perpendicular to the length of the breast. Great for sandwiches this way.

Oh, and cooking time is 3.5-4 hours depending on size of bird. It took 4 hours exactly for a 23lb store-bought turkey last time I did it. Smaller wild-turkeys will be around 3-3.25 hours total.