This year, and last we cooked the Thanksgiving turkey in it. The day before I brined the turkey using the Neeley's brining recipe The next morning I removed the turkey from the brine, patted it dry and seasoned it with Pampered Chef's BBQ Rub, you can purchase it and any other Pampered Chef products from this site I rubbed down the bird and set it aside.
Next you need to get a bag of wood chips and soak them for at least an hour, set this aside well you assemble the Orion.
I stuff the bird with oranges and orange peels to give an extra citrus flavor.
In the pan I put some apple juice and orange peels which will help keep the turkey moist and add flavor. Around the drip pan you add your wood chips which have soaked for over an hour.
Next you use the stand which comes with the Orion and put it inside of the turkey, you stand your turkey upright in the cooker. As you can see I used a piece of foil to hold the wings down so the turkey was not touching the sides of the Orion.
After your bird is inside you place the lid on, light the charcoal and forget about it. The instructions say 7 minutes a pound and that's pretty accurate as long as your cooker stays HOT. It was pretty cold her in Salt Lake so I had to add a little more lighter fuel to my charcoal to keep things going.
My little guys watched me to make sure I did everything right. He is such an awesome helper!
I moved William away and light the Orion
About 3 hours later and here is the end result, YUM! YUM!
