Beer Can Turkey Redux

In the castle kitchen, curled up behind a hodgepodge of tea boxes, is a small collection of cookbooks which have come down to me as part of my ancestral legacy.

From the Presbyterian classic "Mix, Munch and Marinade" to my Mom's own, handmade collection for her oven-challenged son, I've got 'em all, people!

This, however, is not one of those.
Those are for closers.
Only.

This is the late Steve Gilliard's famous Beer Can Chicken recipe which he re-purposed for the Meleagris gallopavo and republished on the "The News Blog Food Blog" four years ago. And I am re-republishing it here in its entirety in part because of a fine conversation I had last night with a friend of mine who is an up-and-coming Chicago media mogul.

The subject was the trend among media owners and their marketing consultants to hunt ever more obsessively for revenue and audience by subsecting their markets ever more microscopically by age, race, ethnicity, faith, gender, sexual orientation, class, political stance, sumptuary code, and so on. And that while inclusiveness as a general principle is certainly a fine thing, becoming too fixated on matching demographics with time slots or column inches can come at the expense of forgetting the reason anyone continues to read or listen to anything: the power of the words and the skill of the writer or speaker.

The converse of this showed up in the wild, young days of the Liberal Blogosphere with people like Digby and Steve Gilliard. An amazing number of people were shocked when it turned out that the person behind the muscular writings of "Digby" was a nice, middle-aged lady. And it was a source of endless amusement among many of us that about once every week or two -- like clockwork -- some prominent troll would clamber to its hind legs and try to get up in Steve's grill about his alleged "racism" (A well-worn GOP tactic in those days was to scream at the tops of their lungs that that anybody who opposed the Iraq War [or thought Michael Steels was a fucking tool] was racist) because it was impossible for them to comprehend that the amazing, prolific, ferocious torrent of prose that came pouring out of "The News Blog" every day was written by some black guy.

Let the People of the Church say "Good writing is where you find it" :-)

And part of Steve's trick in keeping it fresh (other than sheer hard work) was mixing it up. At "The News Blog" you got politics, policy, Rudy Giuliani, tech/geek stuff, dubious dating advice, a rowdy commentariat, history (world and military), the trials and triumphs of Manchester United, Chicago-style hot dogs vs. sucky New York dogs, Yankee-hating, the NY Transit Authority news.

And cooking.

After Steve died there was a lot of very sincere and extravagant "legacy" talk: there were to be books and blogs, endowments and video games and A!Major!Motion!Picture but after awhile all of that sort of evaporated into the air (OK, some of these I made up, but I would pay real money to see Samuel L. Jackson as Steve handling a troll


Or even Dave Chappelle as Samuel L. Jackson as Steve.)



Well, life happens, so instead of a glittering, animatronic-and-laser-effect-heavy "Steve Gilliard Experience" exhibit in one wing of the Smithsonian Museum of Blogosphere History, you get me, rooting around in the old steamer trunks from time to time. And since the subtext last night was "good writing", and the weather said "Thanksgiving", how could I resist a slice of Beer Can Turkey?

Turkey

There are a hundred debates about what makes a great Turkey, brining, frying, injecting.

Well, this is the place to debate the great turkey issues of the day.

Beer Can Turkey

Monday, October 24, 2005

Last year, I prepared a Classic Roast Turkey. This year I wanted to provide another variation on turkey and had decided on smoking the turkey. When I received my September 2005 issue of Cook's Country Magazine and found an article featuring Beer-Can Chicken, I decided to modify that recipe to work for a turkey.

The use of a beer can inserted into a chicken is an old barbeque trick to provide flavored steam to the inside of the chicken as it cooks. At the same time, the beer supposely adds flavor to the chicken. Problem is, I don't quite buy it. If the beer is giving off steam, then most of that steam is just going to be water... most of the beer flavor will just be concentrating in the can. However, it seems that it would be sacrilegeous if I used the beer can but left out the beer.

The first step is to brine the turkey. Find a non-reactive (polycarbonate plastic, glass, or stainless steel) container large enough to hold the turkey. Prepare a brining solution of 1 cup table salt to 1 gallon water and soak the turkey in the solution in the refrigerator for four to six hours. (If your turkey has been infused with a solution, then reduce the salt content in your brine or just soak it in a container filled with plain water.)

Pour out the brining solution and rinse the turkey. One convenient way to do this is to position a rack in the sink and place the turkey on the rack to rinse. After the turkey has been rinsed, let it dry by placing it on a rack on a sheet pan in the refrigerator overnight (or for eight hours). Alternatively, use a blow drier on cool setting (no heat) to blow over the skin of the turkey until dry.

In order to prepare beer can turkey, a beer can is necessary. However, a normal 12-oz. beer can, perfect for a chicken, is a bit too small for the large cavity of a turkey. At my local convenience store, I found this 24 oz. micro-keg shaped can of Heineken. It looked to be about the right size, so I bought it.

After pouring the beer into another container (a large measuring cup), remove the top of the can. I used an OXO Good Grips can opener to cleanly remove the top (it took only one pass). Removing the top provides enough surface area from which the steam can rise. The small opening made by the pop top just isn't enough of an opening to effectively provide moisture to the turkey.

Deposit six bay leaves (broken up) and two teaspoons dried thyme into the can. Unlike the beer, the herbs will provide noticeable flavor and aroma while the steam helps keep the turkey moist during it's long cooking process.

Soak a cup of hickory wood chips in some water.

Prepare a spice rub by combining two tablespoons brown sugar, two tablespoons paprika, one tablespoon kosher salt, one tablespoon black pepper, and one teaspoon cayenne pepper. Mix the spice rub well.

Rub the spice rub over the entire exterior of the turkey. Loosen the skin over the breasts and thighs and rub the spices under the skin. Finally, rub the remaining spice rub inside the cavity of the turkey.

Pour half the beer back into the open beer can (reserving half for your drinking pleasure). Not pouring all the beer back reduces the risk of spilling as you transport the turkey to and from the grill. Lift the turkey up and lower it onto the beer can.

Place the turkey on the grill. If using a gas grill, position the turkey over one burner, away from the other burners. Turn the burner under the turkey off and turn the other burners on low. If using a charcoal grill, start the charcoals (you'll need a couple batches of about 100 briquettes each over the course of the smoking). When they're ready, push them to the outer edges of the grill leaving the center available for the turkey. Make a container with aluminum foil (or use a metal wood chip tray) and fill it with the wood chips that were soaking in water. Place the container over the other burner or on the hot coals. My grill was not large enough to cover the turkey without the lid touching it, so I placed a V rack in the middle to prop up the lid. I also inserted a Polder Cooking Thermometer into a thigh to track the temperature of the turkey.

Close the lid of the grill. If the turkey is too tall for your grill lid, find a way to prop open the lid just enough (so the lid is mostly closed, but not touching the bird). Then use heavy duty aluminum foil to cover the gap that's left. The aluminum foil lets out a lot of heat, but will help keep the smoke in long enough to flavor the turkey.

The actual cooking of the turkey is a bit finicky and has a lot to do with your grill and how much cooling air is getting into the grill from the slightly open lid. If you didn't need to prop open the lid of your gas grill, keep the burners on low. However, if you did need to prop open the lid, you might need to turn up the heat to compensate for the heat loss? Don't turn on the burner underneath the turkey - we want to cook it with indirect heat. If using charcoal, after the first one and a half to two hours, you'll need to start a new batch of charcoal and replace the original coals as they lose heat.

Halfway through the cooking, about two hours, rotate the turkey to allow even cooking.

When the thigh meat reaches 160°F (71°C) (about 4-1/2 hours in my example), prepare a simple glaze with two tablespoons brown sugar, two tablespoons ketchup, two tablespoons distilled white vinegar, two tablespoons beer, and two teaspoons of hot sauce (I prefer Frank's RedHot Original Hot Sauce). Brush the glaze onto the turkey and cover. After five minutes, brush on another layer of glaze and allow it to cook until the thigh meat registers 170°F (77°C). If you don't have a thermometer, at least poke the turkey with a skewer to see if the juices run clear. If the fluid that comes out contains traces of blood, continue to cook the turkey

Happy early Thanksgiving people.

And fuck the fucking Yankees.