In a word, here’s how my turkey came out!
GREAT!
Details:
I used TJ’s spiced cider as the base for my brine. I add bay leaves, fresh rosemary, and about 1/3 cup kosher salt. I used one of those XXL baggies (used for bagging sporting goods etc. – it was much larger than I needed but I already had the bags) and then placed the bagged-n-brined turkey in a cooler with ice and water to keep it chilled to under 40 degrees. I started ~8 pm on Wednesday evening, rotated the turkey before going to bed and again when I woke up. I pulled the turkey from the brine at 9 am (when I started making the stuffing), rinsed it and left it to dry and come up to room temp. Then I stuffed it and put it on the BBQ breast down.
I placed a drip pan on the fake “coals” above the gas jets and under the grill, and filled it with cider. I basted with cider every 1/2 hour or so, and turned the bird breast side up 2 hours later. I covered it with foil after another hour as it was plenty brown.
Things I’ll do differently next time:
Drip pan with chicken broth, baste with broth so that the drippings can be used for gravy. Have chunks of onion, celery and carrots in the drip pan along with a bay leaf, all for flavoring the broth for gravy.
Preheat the grill with burners on medium until it reaches 450 then turn to low immediately when I put the bird on.
Watch the temp and if it doesn’t drop below 400 within 30 minutes with both burners on low then turn one burner off.