How I Do Thanksgiving Turkey

Most years for Thanksgiving I grill a turkey on a charcoal Weber grill using the indirect method--you can see I have two piles of coals on either side and I fashion a drip pan out of foil under the turkey.  If you add more charcoal each hour, you can do a 18-20 pounder in about 3 hours and the flavor from the smoke is wonderful and most of the turkey stays juicy except the outer edge of the white meat.

This year I made a 14 pounder and reduced the overall time on the grill to 2.5 hours--I actually tried a technique I saw on a food show where you remove the legs after the turkey is mostly done and put them back on the grill for 15-20 minutes longer while the rest of turkey, mostly white meat, rests.  This attempts to solve the issue that dark meat will cook longer given the bones and fat content.  I hope to perfect the technique next time as my timing was a little off when I initially took off the legs.