First Post & First Cook

[mr breeze]

Hi,

Same Thanksgiving Turkey theme here with me.  I have fried my turkeys in peanut oil for 8 to 10 years.  Very satisfied with my results with oil frying and I was okay with the cleanup and disposal of used oil.  It was the cost of the oil each year that compelled me to make a change to The Big Easy Cooker.

I got myself a TBE a few weeks ago and after reading another forum for a few weeks, I took the advice to practice on a chicken first.  Purchased a 5.5 pound Fasters Farms Chicken, rubbed it with peanut oil, put on some Cajon Seasoning and dropped her in, feet first, resting on a beer can holder to support it sitting up right. I did a pre-heat burn-off and seasoning of the TBE the day before.

With no wind, and 75 degrees outside temperature, I cooked it for one hour and ten minutes, with top on the whole cook, until the thigh was 185 degrees and the breast was 175 degrees. I must have dumb luck because my first try was a perfect bird.  I could not have wish for any better results.

Next try will be on Thanksgiving afternoon with a 15 pound butterball turkey.  Wish me luck because it will not be good for me if I drop the ball this Thursday, lol….

I will make a post with a few pictures. I apologize in advance if the picture posting here is not correct in any manner in this post as it is my first try.

-Nick

[TMB]

This is why I wanted you here with us!  Great cook and pictures!

[drholly]

Gosh that's a nice looking bird! Good for you.

[mr breeze]

This is why I wanted you here with us!  Great cook and pictures!

Thanks Tommy.  Glad to be here...

[mr breeze]

Gosh that's a nice looking bird! Good for you.

Thank-you Sir...

[HighOnSmoke]

Turkey looks perfect Nick! Great job!
On a side note: Has Tommy been talking to you about mods yet?? 

[sliding_billy]

good looking bird.  Welcome!

[teesquare]

Beauty of a bird there!…Tellus about your camera, and your picture posting "method" - i.e., which hosting service are you using?

[hikerman]

Nick, you did a lot better than good.......that's a beauty of a bird you did. Great job!
If I may suggest one thing, Tommy invented a device called a TommyRing that goes in bottom of the TBE but still allows the basket legs to support, it lifts food further up in the better cooking zone. I'm a frugal guy so I used a wok support that is for an electric stove. Anyway, the benefit of this is you can put a handful or two of smoking wood chips on the outside of Tommy's ring or mine and you get a nice smokey flavor. Do not let the wood get drippings from your meat as there will be a fire.
Good luck with your turkey and have a great holiday with the family!
Gene

[smokeasaurus]

Great looking turkey. Got me all fired up for tomorrow.......................

[SmokinKat]

Awesome looking practice run!!  Can't wait to see pics of the "real" bird tomorrow!   Best of luck to you-- I'm sure you'll nail it!   

[mr breeze]

Turkey looks perfect Nick! Great job!
On a side note: Has Tommy been talking to you about mods yet?? 

Thank you sir.  Nothing with the mods so far.    I hope I have not been bad - it's way too soon to be "called on the carpet" already, lol...

[mr breeze]

Beauty of a bird there!…Tellus about your camera, and your picture posting "method" - i.e., which hosting service are you using?

Thank you sir.

The camera is a Nikon D7000 and thousands more in lenses.  These were taken using the Nikon 16-85 lens.  The pictures are in "Photobucket".  I am still trying to figure out the posting method as I just joined photobucket last week and this is only the second time I tried this.  I was hoping I would not "bomb-out" the whole process.  In other words, I have no idea what the heck I am doing as far as getting the pictures on these post, lol.

I tried that Photobucket app installed on this forum but have not quite figured out just how that works.  This time I just used some process in photobucket that generated a list of URL's of the photos I selected.  Then I pasted those URL's into the post.  Then highlighted each URL and hit that "Insert Image" icon on the post menu bar.  That put those codes at each end of the URL, I had to do that for each URL one at a time. The picture posting is still a work in progress for me at this point.

Do you think the pictures are too large?  I did reduce them quit a bit from their original size.  What do you think??

[mr breeze]

Nick, you did a lot better than good.......that's a beauty of a bird you did. Great job!
If I may suggest one thing, Tommy invented a device called a TommyRing that goes in bottom of the TBE but still allows the basket legs to support, it lifts food further up in the better cooking zone. I'm a frugal guy so I used a wok support that is for an electric stove. Anyway, the benefit of this is you can put a handful or two of smoking wood chips on the outside of Tommy's ring or mine and you get a nice smokey flavor. Do not let the wood get drippings from your meat as there will be a fire.
Good luck with your turkey and have a great holiday with the family!
Gene

Thank you sir.  Yes, I did learn about the "Tommy Ring".  On this cook, I did not have that but I just happened to have a piece of cookware, a round chrome baking/cooling rack (I don't know what) that just happened to fit in there perfect.  Since then, I went to Walmart and got a 9 inch springform pan, that I will be using from now on.  I don't know what that rack was/is but I cleaned it up after the cook and put in back where I found it before anyone knew I used it for grilling, lol...

Edit: Spelling, Lord...

[mr breeze]

Great looking turkey. Got me all fired up for tomorrow.......................

Thank you sir.  I must say that I love your handle, "smokeasarurus"  - that's great!  Great avatar as well too, it fits.  I wish I could come up with stuff like that...