Thanksgiving Feast: Weber Grill Turkey

For the past few years I have been making my Thanksgiving turkey in the Weber grill.  It is so easy, and makes the most delicious bird ever.

Last year, I was relatively new to Twitter, and decided to live-tweet the whole process, complete with photos.  It was also the largest Thanksgiving I had ever hosted at my house, with 20 guests (plus one infant).  Here are the photos and captions as I tweeted them:

 Starting the charcoal.

 The bird, 26.7 lbs.

 Coals are hot and arranged on either side, with a few more added on top.

 Now I need to bring it up to 300-350.

 Running a tad hot so I'll let it sit while I work on Big Bird.

Aluminum pan will catch the drippings and keeps the coals on place. 

Add h2o as req'd so it doesn't burn.

 Giblets, neck and some skin trimmings are cooking down to add to the gravy.

  Bird on grill. The bird is almost too big but will be ok. Next yr I will keep it to 24 lbs or under.

(N.B. this was tweeted at 10:00 a.m.)

 I use Tibvrtini olive oil. www.tibvrtini.com.

 Temp dropped so adding more charcoal. Now I'll leave it be for 30 mins.

  Bird is looking good. 

Little foil toupee is because I think the top is just touching the lid.

 Mmmm juicy. 

Holding steady at 350 and sizzling away. 

Can smell the rosemary.

 Color is looking just about perfect. 

Taking Big Bird's temp soon.

 At 3 hours the temp is reading 160 at the thigh so still not there yet.

 Just hit the low 170s so probably 20-30 minutes to go.

 And my sister made water chestnuts n shrimp wrapped in BACON mmmmm.

Birdy has reached our target of 180 degrees. 

I checked it in 2 places at the thighs.

(N.B. this was tweeted at 1:55 p.m., for a total cook time of 4 hours)

 Here are the bacon wraps. 

I could eat these all day.

 Now to carve.

 Carving.

 Massive feast!

 My 10-year-old nephew insisted on having a leg himself!

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This was the conclusion of my tweeting about the Thanksgiving Extravaganza.  There were a few other pictures of the day that I think are worth sharing.  

My friend Alan posted this on Facebook, just before I carved the bird, shown here with his caption:

 Before bird mutilation.

Cathy took the rest of the pictures, and shared them with me later.

Here I am offering a toast, to kick off the meal, just after which I took the Massive Feast photo above.

 The Toast

I guess Cathy didn't take this one, since she is in it, but as she sent it to me, it must have been on her camera.  She made dress-up costumes with my sister's Emily's kids, and they paraded around as Indians and such for the day.  The year the kids (and Cathy!) dressed up for Thanksgiving will live forever:

 Cathy with the kids.

After we ate, several of us, including our wonderful neighbors across the street, Damian and Regan, went for a walk around the neighborhood with the dogs.  Cathy snapped this pic at the corner of our street, and I think it's the perfect summary of a great day.