27 Turkeys

I'm still playing catch-up with the blog.  We have now reached Thanksgiving.  We have been cooking our turkey in our bbq pit for the last several years.  Many family and friends put a turkey or roast in too, but we have never filled it to capacity.  This year we reached the maximum.  We ended up with 27 turkeys and 3 roasts.  Everybody fit in the pit, but we determined our cut-off should have been 25 turkeys to allow for variations in bird size.  Here are a few of the turkeys ready for the pit.

The night before Thanksgiving has almost become as much of a holiday as the actual Thanksgiving day.  Lots of people drop by to bring their turkey.  Everybody has their turkey wrapped up in foil, but we still have to add wire and some indicator of whose turkey is whose.  Writing on the foil sometimes disappears in the fire and ash overnight.  So everyone "registers" their turkey with us and we put some combination of nuts and washers on the wire of each turkey to distinguish it from the others.  All the turkey preparers discuss brining, how they seasoned their turkey, and share recipes.  It is a fun time. 

Through the night Bryce and Adam get to see cousins and friends from the ward as people come by.  Here they are playing with cousins David Dahl and Ashli Porter (way in the back).

Dan usually starts the fire around 6 pm.  Max was over to help too and they kept adding wood to make a perfect bed of coals for cooking.  Dan has a pipe that he attaches to his shop vac (backwards) to blow air down on the coals to accelerate the burning.

See how high the flames go when a little air hits the coals.  Finally the fire burns down and everyone determines that there are enough coals to cook 27 turkeys and 3 roasts.  Dan and Max are always a little nervous about ruining someone's Thanksgiving with an uncooked turkey.  But so far so good.

There are no pictures of the placing of the turkeys in the pit because it has to go so quickly and is very HOT.

But after the turkeys are all arranged and all the meat fits in, a thick steel plate is quickly placed over the pit and everybody grabs a shovel to cover the plate and seal the heat into the pit.  Once the dirt is in place, they sprinkle it with water to get a good seal.  Now the turkeys will cook for 12-14 hours.