Grilling a Turkey

[Anonymous]

Has anyone grilled-gas grill-their turkey? We are considering it this year. How does it differ in terms of taste, preparation from the oven method? Any tips?

[Anonymous]

I use my gas grill almost every year, because my small 1950s oven isn't big enough for my roasting pan.

I don't grill the turkey over direct heat, though. I just use the grill as an oven. First, I heat it to blast-high and scrub off the crud as usual. Then I turn off all the middle burners, leaving just the two end burners on. I let it come down to 400, then I put the turkey-in-roasting-pan in the middle, so the flames are beyond the ends of the pan, not underneath. Close the lid and try to keep it closed as much as possible. I only open once in the middle to flip the bird over (I do the first half with the breast down), and then once or twice to baste.

Comes out great; no different than the oven.

In years past, I used to smoke the turkey, which is an entirely different thing that takes all day. I love it, but DW doesn't, so not so much anymore.

[Anonymous]

Bear in mind that I'm a lousy cook, but I tried this a couple of years ago when our oven malfunctioned midway through T-Day, and it was a disaster - I also tried to use the grill as an oven, as the PP suggested, and I believe I consulted internet guidance on how to do it. But the bird wound up crispy in some places and half raw in others. I threw it out. If you're a savvy chef and griller, I'm sure it's possible to do it well. But you might want to try a practice run!

[Anonymous]

Do some googling. I'm not a griller, but I love cooking. I'm not sure how that would work. It would have to be a tiny turkey to grill right on the grill. Otherwise how could you get the inside fully cooked without charring the outside to bits and drying the whole thing out? I'm sure you could take apart the turkey and grill the pieces. Especially if you use that technique where you flatten the meat and grill with a foil covered brick atop of it.

I'm curious to hear if anyone has grilled a whole bird.

What about a smoker?

[Anonymous]

Like 13:23 we use our gas grill every year and it works great (only thing is we miss the smell of the roasting turkey). We don't do it right on the grill (how you make gravy?). We get a disposable foil pan and turn the middle burners off.

Lots of advice on how to do this on the web-- like this one,

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cooking-live/turkey-on-the-grill-recipe/index.html

[Anonymous]

A smoked turkey is a beautiful thing. I used to do it in a bullet-shaped (water) smoker every year and it was pretty fool-proof. I bet a Big Green Egg is even better. But, like smoking anything, low and slow, it took a really ong time. You've got to like cracking the first beer at about 6:45 a.m. as you build the fire.

To do it in an offset smoker, I bet you really have to know what you're doing not to dry it out. I never got that good.

Google away, and if you're a beginner, bullet smokers don't cost that much--you can find them at any hardware store, Walmart or Target. Totally worth trying--you'll be hooked.

But I might not first-time it for Thanksgiving unless you've got a really small gathering. With a lot of folks coming over, there's too much at stake to screw up.

[Anonymous]

Bear in mind that I'm a lousy cook, but I tried this a couple of years ago when our oven malfunctioned midway through T-Day, and it was a disaster - I also tried to use the grill as an oven, as the PP suggested, and I believe I consulted internet guidance on how to do it. But the bird wound up crispy in some places and half raw in others. I threw it out. If you're a savvy chef and griller, I'm sure it's possible to do it well. But you might want to try a practice run!

One thing is, your grill's got to be big enough. Mine has six burners and I only use the two on the ends.

If you've got a mid-size, 2 or 3 burner grill, I think it would be hard to do this without running into the problems PP had. To keep it even, you'd have to keep rotating it, and you'd lose so much heat every time you open up to rotate that it would end up taking quite a bit longer than you think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Bear in mind that I'm a lousy cook, but I tried this a couple of years ago when our oven malfunctioned midway through T-Day, and it was a disaster - I also tried to use the grill as an oven, as the PP suggested, and I believe I consulted internet guidance on how to do it. But the bird wound up crispy in some places and half raw in others. I threw it out. If you're a savvy chef and griller, I'm sure it's possible to do it well. But you might want to try a practice run!

One thing is, your grill's got to be big enough. Mine has six burners and I only use the two on the ends.

If you've got a mid-size, 2 or 3 burner grill, I think it would be hard to do this without running into the problems PP had. To keep it even, you'd have to keep rotating it, and you'd lose so much heat every time you open up to rotate that it would end up taking quite a bit longer than you think.

I'm not sure what kind of grill you have, but I have the old reliable Weber Genesis -- there are three burners that stretch the width of the grill area-- we use the front one and the back one and we have no problems whatsoever. No need to rotate it regularly-- at most we might flip it once.

[Anonymous]

One more thing--be sure you have a spare bottle of propane on hand. You're going to run that thing for several hours. You don't want to be caught having to look for a propane refill station that's open on Thanksgiving, while precious minutes tick away before your guests arrive.

[FWIW, if you do find yourself in this situation, the Shell station next to Montgomery Mall has propane.]

[Anonymous]

thanks everyone!! We have a large six burner grill so I want to try grilling and my husband wants to try deep frying so we will buy two smaller birds and try both methods-hopefully at least one works out! Happy TG!