That's right, a smoked 19 pound turkey stradling a beer can.
My GF and I both get free Butterball turkeys from work. This past Sunday I decided to cook one up, portion it out and use it for our weekly salads and such. I've done the oven bag, the deep fryer, smoked, etc...
This time I decided to try out smoking it on my vertical smoker with a beer can shoved up it's arse. Not any can would do either, for this size bird. So I picked up a 24 oz. tall boy of Miller Lite, and an oil can of Fosters to see if one of them would work. The oil can just wasn't right, so I went with the 24 oz. It fit in my chicken roaster: http://www.amazon.com/06115X-Non-Stick-Self-Basting-Chicken-Roaster/dp/B000E5AIRQ/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1416951649&sr=8-9&keywords=beer+can+chicken+roaster but I was concerned about venting the steam internally into the bird. After drinking half the beer and cutting the top open with a can opener, I punched several vent holes in the side of the can with a church key can opener.
I dumped in a few Tbsp poultry rub into the can and mixed into the beer. Then I rubbed the turkey with vegetable oil and poultry rub. The nice part about that specific chicken roaster is that you can set it on a rack and it has holes for the drippings. With a drip pan of water on the middle rack of the smoker, I placed another rack on top and then the chicken roaster. This set up allowed no direct heat or flame to hit the turkey, while allowing the drippings to land in the water bowl drip pan. Having it sit down on the middle rack also allowed the lid to be put on.
Having no idea how long this would take, I stuck in a temp probe and set the bird down onto the rack. I had already dumped a chimney of hot coals onto a bed of unlit coals. At the 1.5 hour mark I prepared another chimney of coals, and added it at the two hour mark. I did this again at the four hour mark. At 5.5 hours the turkey was done to 180. I don't think that's a bad time for a 19 lb. bird, in a smoker.
It was absolutely the most moist, delicious turkey I've ever experienced.
If anyone wants more details, I plan on doing another one the same way, so I can take pics of the process, etc.
