It’s that time of year again where family and friends get together and share food, drinks, laughs, and hopefully a great time.  I absolutely love to cook food and I’m always trying to find a better way to cook my turkey for Thanksgiving.

Here are the different ways I have tried cooking turkey so far.

• smoking
• deep frying
• roasting
• grilling

Get some these cooking tips above from allrecipes.com

So far, deep frying the turkey has been my favorite because it makes the skin so crispy, but it is probably the unhealthiest of the methods.  This year, I am going to try Beer Canned Turkey.   I’m sure many of you know or have tried beer canned chicken before and if you have cooked chicken with this method, you know how good it is.  Crispy flavorful skin on the outside and juicy, delicious, and tender meat on the inside.   I figured, a turkey is just an over sized chicken, so all I would need is a 16oz or 24oz beer can depending on how big my bird is.  I’ll probably just cook a 12 pound turkey in the oven using this method.  I would love to use my grill, but unfortunately, my grill is too small.  The lid would not close down on the turkey standing up.  For anyone who has never cooked beer canned chicken before on the grill, you have to cook it on indirect heat.  There should be no actual flames under the chicken.  If you are using a charcoal grill, I would move one pile of coals all the way to the left and one pile all the way to the right.  Make sure there is no charcoal directly beneath the meat.  If you are using a gas grill with two burners, leave one off and put the chicken on the side with no flames.  It usually works best if you have 3 burners though and you just leave the middle one off and put the chicken there.

Beer Canned Turkey Recipe

Ingredients

1 10lb – 14lb turkey (washed and dried)

1 24 oz beer (one of those huge Foster’s beer cans will do

2 large garlic cloves minced

1 medium onion cut into quarters

Handful of fresh rosemary (1 tablespoon dried if that is what you have)

Handful of fresh thyme (1 tablespoon dried if that is all you have)

2 tablespoons of ground pepper

2 tablespoons of salt

1 tablespoon of paprika

1/2 tablespoon of cumin powder

1 large lemon

Olive Oil

Directions

Begin by preheating the oven to 350 degrees

1. Put rosemary, thyme, onion in Cavity

2. Drink half of the beer

3. Squeeze lemon juice into beer can and put squeezed lemons in the cavity

4. Put 1 tbsp salt, 1 tbsp pepper, paprika, cumin into beer can

5. Make sure turkey skin is dry and rub enough olive oil to cover the skin

6. Sprinkle remaining salt and pepper on the turkey.  You may add other seasonings to taste if you wish.

7. Put turkey over beer can and form a tri-pod with the legs so it can stand up on it’s own on the baking sheet.

8. Carefully put turkey in oven after it has been preheated.  Cook Turkey until either the breast reaches 165 degrees or the the thigh reaches 180 degrees.  It will take about 20 -25 minutes per pound.