My dear sweet retired neighbor John got a 22-pound frozen turkey for free last year, and he gave it to me. I parked it in my deep freezer, because my talented cousin Stephanie always brings a succulent bird to our family Thanksgiving gathering. (What do I bring? That’s another story.) I figured I’d do something with that turkey eventually.
Last week I needed to find more real estate in my deep freezer and since I never did anything with that old turkey, I decided it was time to send him to the dumpster. Wait a second — the expiration date label said it’s still good! Hmmm.
I looked up Alton Brown’s technique for smoking a turkey and made up my mind to give it a go. It’s way too much meat for just me and my kiddo, but hey, surely I could get a couple of decent sandwiches out of this guy instead of just trashing him entirely, right? Um, yeah, right.
I thawed him carefully. I brined him for 16 hours. I meticulously followed cross-contamination protocols that would make the entire Culinary Institute of America stand up and salute me with oven mitts.
Thing is, I’m in a tiny condo with a tiny patio and a tiny Weber gas grill. Undaunted, I was certain I could use Alton’s technique to create a juicy, smoky, flavorful turkey. And I was feeling cocky enough to think I could use my iPhone to document my cooking prowess and tweet it to the world.
My 22-pound turkey, ready to be smoked.
That photo was taken at 5:04 pm. A few minutes later, I noticed that there was a lot more smoke escaping from the grill than I expected. So I lifted the lid.
Houston, we have a problem
Ha! The turkey fat is causing some flame-ups. Isn’t that cute? Let me just snap that with my iPhone and tweet it before I get my squirt gun to douse those little flames.
Alton Brown gave me this. Really.
Within moments, those little flames grew. And grew. My jurassic water-delivery device couldn’t keep up. I feared a neighbor would alert the fire department because of the billowing smoke from my balcony. And (seriously!) I wondered what my Twitter pal @jdanton would be telling me to do at this moment.
To hell with iPhone pics! I rushed to my sink and filled a pitcher with water, then threw it on the whole inferno.
And by 5:34pm, here is what I had accomplished:
No recovery from THIS disaster
Needless to say, the next step was to let this bird rest. In the dumpster.
Next time, turn off the grill and shut the lid.
Awww… this is heartbreaking, really. Kinda wishing the guy didn’t give his life for naught. Bah.
What’s with the tin-foil navel ring, though? Curious about that.
Tin foil naval ring: This bird was so big, his breast grazed the inside top of the grill! I put that on there so there was a bit of space.
Like that really MATTERED.