Are you fully cooking the turkey by smoking? If so, treat it like any cooked meat. We smoke/roast a big turkey every Thanksgiving. We eat some of it over a day or two, the rest is frozen. I prefer to break down the whole carcass as soon as it's done so I can put it into the stock pot. The big joints are cut off the bones which also go into stock. This is to minimize the space it takes in the freezer. We keep some of the meat in the fridge to be eaten but everything else is in the freezer within hours of taking the turkey out of the oven. Cheryl

I read on one of the BBQ sites that if the skin is too dark, then I was using too much smoke. I must say - the smoke was *pouring* out the vent in the top! LOL - I bet my whole neighborhood had their mouth's watering! We cooked it at 275 and it was done in about 4 hours - much faster than we expected. Dinner was 3 hours away, so we wrapped it in foil, turned it breast side down, and let it sit on the counter until dinnertime. It was still plenty hot 3 hours later!!! Our current plan is to try 225 and use less wood. Can anyone comment on any of this? We had thought about cutting the bird up since we will not be "presenting" a whole bird at the table. That way, we can monitor the white meat separately from the dark and pull each when ready. Thoughts on this? I'm trying to keep the oven free for the side dishes. :-)

I'm envious - I love necks for making stock. But Foster Farms has discontinued offering them, so even the butchers are unable to get them. One guy told me he was able to get a few dozen pkgs over the Thanksgiving season, but then they were gone again from his order catalog. Rats! Even the Asian markets don't carry the bulk parts any longer.

Thanks, plllog, I was hoping you would chime in. I've read so many of your posts between the kitchen and the cooking forums. The reheat mode starts with steam and convection heat, and after about five or so minutes, the steam stops (vented out, I think), but the oven cavity stays moist. I've used the reheat mode for brisket, roast, chicken, even salmon, etc., with great results... and my gut tells me that it would work great with the turkey... but Thanksgiving seems a high risk time to be trying something new! The turkey is 14 lbs, and is fully smoked/cooked/packaged. It's supposed to be a good brand from a high end grocery store... so I think I'm starting with a good turkey... and hopefully I can do it justice. I do have a probe. Once the turkey reaches temperature, it will be going into my car for a 30 minute drive to where we will be eating. So... it won't be really hot when we eat..., but I don't want it cold either. I looked again at the user's manual. The convect humid mode doesn't add steam, it just doesn't vent humidity that is generated. So, this doesn't feel right for my turkey. There is a convection steam mode... which combines steam with the convection heating at whatever temperature I set. The steam doesn't cut off automatically, but I can stop the steam whenever I want. This is the mode I actually used to roast a whole turkey last year... which turned out superb. Turkey was super moist, and the skin was perfectly browned and crispy. (It was magic...) I'll look at the turkey when I unwrap it to see if I think I could disassemble it without mangling it. I do kind of want it to look pretty, though, so I think I'd rather leave it looking like a turkey if I can get comfortable with my approach to reheating.