Smoking a Turkey on a Pellet Grill at 300°F (Timing by Weight)

Run the pellet grill at 300°F and a brined 12 to 14 lb turkey takes about 13 minutes a pound, which puts a 14 lb bird at roughly 3 hours 15 minutes. Pull it when the breast reads 162°F and the thigh 175°F, rest it half an hour, and the breast coasts up to 165°F on the board.

This recipe is written for a Traeger, with cherry and pecan pellets mixed half and half, butter pushed under the breast skin and a pan of stock under the rack. The timings assume a grey afternoon in the mid 40s with a light wind, which is about what most of the country sees on Thanksgiving week. It’s the cook in the poultry recipes that people get most nervous about, mostly because the whole family is watching.

The usual first-turkey mistake is running it at 225°F, because that’s what works for pork shoulder. Six hours later the breast is fine and the skin is a grey, damp sheet that everyone peels off and leaves on the plate. At 300°F the skin comes out brown and thin enough to bite through, and every number on this page follows from that change.

Which turkey to buy for the smoker

A 12 to 14 lb bird is the size I’d shop for. It fits a standard pellet grill with the lid closed, cooks evenly from front to back, and feeds 10 to 12 people. Bigger birds are where whole-turkey smoking gets awkward, because the breast hits its number long before the thighs do.

Bird weight	What I’d do
10 to 14 lb	Smoke it whole at 300°F, exactly as written here
14 to 16 lb	Whole is still fine; turn the pan twice instead of once
Over 16 lb	Spatchcock it or buy two smaller birds
White meat only	Cook a smoked turkey breast instead, which feeds 6

Read the label before you buy brine supplies. Supermarket turkeys marked “enhanced”, “basted” or “self-basting” have been injected with a salt solution of up to 8 percent, and brining one of those turns the breast into something closer to deli ham. You want a bird marked “no solution added”, or a fresh one from a butcher.

Thawing takes longer than anyone budgets for. A frozen turkey needs a full day in the fridge for every 4 to 5 lb, so a 14 lb bird goes in the fridge three days before the brine starts. If the cavity still has ice in it, wait; brine can’t reach frozen meat, and the outside oversalts while the middle thaws.

How long to smoke a turkey at 300°F

Turkey weight	Grill temp	Approximate time	Pull at
10 to 12 lb	300°F	2.5 to 3 hours	162°F breast, 175°F thigh
12 to 14 lb	300°F	3 to 3.5 hours	162°F breast, 175°F thigh
14 to 16 lb	300°F	3.5 to 4 hours	162°F breast, 175°F thigh
16 to 18 lb	300°F	4 to 4.5 hours	162°F breast, 175°F thigh
18 to 20 lb	300°F	4.5 to 5 hours	162°F breast, 175°F thigh
12 to 14 lb	325°F	2.5 to 3 hours	162°F breast, 175°F thigh

Those times assume the bird went on straight from the fridge and the grill held 300°F at the grate on a day above 40°F. A cold, windy afternoon adds 20 to 30 minutes. For a weight that isn’t on the table, the smoke time calculator gives a starting estimate.

To carve at 4:00, put a 14 lb bird on by 11:45. That covers 3 hours 15 minutes on the grill, a 30 minute rest and a 30 minute cushion, because an early turkey can sit under foil for an hour and lose nothing, while a late one leaves the table eating rolls.

Brining, drying and buttering the bird

The brine is a cup of kosher salt and half a cup of brown sugar dissolved in 2 quarts of hot water, with the bay leaves, peppercorns and halved garlic, then topped up with the rest of the 2 gallons cold. Chill it before the turkey goes in. A 5 gallon food-safe bucket or a big brining bag holds a 14 lb bird, and a cooler with ice works if the brine stays under 40°F. Give it 12 to 24 hours; past that the texture turns spongy.

	Wet brine	Dry brine
Salt	1 cup kosher salt in 2 gallons of water	About 3 tablespoons kosher salt rubbed on
Time	12 to 24 hours	Overnight, 12 to 24 hours
Space	A 5 gallon bucket or a cooler	A rack and a sheet pan in the fridge
Skin	Needs 4 hours of air drying after	Dries while it brines

When it comes out, drain the cavity and pat the bird dry. Skip the rinse; a brine this mild doesn’t leave a salty crust, and rinsing raw poultry in the sink mostly sprays it around the kitchen. Then set it on a rack over a sheet pan, uncovered, in the fridge for at least 4 hours. The skin goes from shiny to papery and slightly tacky, and that dry surface is what browns later.

Before the grill, soften the butter and slide your fingers under the breast skin from the neck end, loosening it without tearing. Push half the butter against the meat and rub the rest over the outside. Season with the pepper, garlic powder, thyme and paprika, and leave salt out of the rub entirely, since the brine already handled it. The onion, lemon and fresh thyme go in the cavity for aroma.

Watch out: Don’t put bread stuffing inside a smoked turkey. The stuffing has to reach 165°F to be safe, and by the time the center of the cavity gets there the breast is well past 175°F. Bake the stuffing in a pan on the upper rack instead.

Running the cook at 300°F

Fill the hopper with cherry and pecan, half and half, and fill it to the top. Set 300°F and leave the lid shut for 15 minutes after the controller says it’s there, because the grate always lags the display. Most pellet grills run hotter at one end of the grate. On the Traeger Pro 575 that AmazingRibs tested, it was the left, chimney side, about 10°F hotter at low settings and more as the heat climbed, so find your hot end and put the bird on with the legs pointed toward it, where the thighs can use the extra heat.

The turkey sits breast up on a wire rack inside a disposable foil pan with 2 cups of stock in the bottom. The pan catches drippings for gravy and keeps fat off the heat deflector, where it would smoke and flare. Push a leave-in probe into the thickest part of the breast, angled in from the side and halfway down, not touching the breastbone. A second probe goes in the thigh, near the bone but not against it.

Then close the lid for two hours and leave it alone. Each time you open it the grill drops about 30°F and the skin stops rendering while it recovers.

The reason for 300°F rather than a classic low smoke is the skin. Turkey skin is mostly water and collagen sitting on a layer of fat. At 225°F that fat never gets hot enough to melt out, and the water leaves so slowly that the skin turns rubbery instead of crisp. At 300°F the fat renders, the moisture cooks off, and the skin tightens and browns while the meat underneath is still in a safe, juicy range. If you want a heavier smoke, run 225°F for the first 45 minutes and then turn it up to 300°F, and add 30 minutes to the plan.

At two hours, rotate the pan end for end and look at the probes. A 14 lb bird usually reads 120 to 130°F in the breast at this point. If the breast skin is already dark and the legs are pale, tear off a loose sheet of foil and lay it over the breast only, like a sunshade, not a wrap.

The classic probing mistake is a tip resting against the breastbone, which heats faster than the meat. It can read 165°F while the breast an inch away is still at 148°F, and then the bird goes back on the grill in pieces while everyone waits. Probe from the side, halfway into the thickest part, and confirm with an instant-read in two other spots before anything leaves the grate.

When the cook goes sideways

What you see	Likely cause	What to do
Breast at 162°F, thighs stuck at 165°F	Thighs sat at the cool end	Carve the breast off, put the leg quarters back on for 15 minutes
Skin pale and soft at 2.5 hours	Grill running cold or skin was wet going on	Raise to 325°F for the last 30 minutes
Breast skin dark at 2 hours	Breast is over a hot spot	Loose foil over the breast, rotate the pan
Grill temperature sliding down	Hopper low or pellets bridged	Stir the pellets and top up the hopper
Running an hour behind	Cold, wind or a bigger bird than labeled	Go to 325°F and keep the lid shut

When the turkey is done

Pull it when the breast reads 162°F in the thickest part and the thigh reads 175°F near the bone. A big bird carries over 3 to 5°F while it rests, so the breast lands at 165°F, which is the USDA number and also the point where the white meat is still moist. At 170°F the breast starts to dry; at 180°F you’ll see a lot of gravy being poured.

The thighs want more heat than the breast, since dark meat has connective tissue that doesn’t soften until about 175°F, and I’m happier at 180°F. If they lag, use the carve-and-return move from the table above; nobody can tell on the platter.

Rest the bird under a loose tent of foil for 30 minutes, or 45 for an 18 lb turkey. Tight foil traps steam and softens the skin you spent three hours building. For carving, take each breast lobe off the bone in one piece and slice it across the grain on the board, then split the thighs from the drumsticks. You get neater slices that way than by carving on the bird.

Cold weather, wind and how many pellets it burns

Thanksgiving is a cold-weather cook for most of the US, and a pellet grill holding 300°F in 30°F air behaves differently from the same grill in July. The controller feeds harder to keep up and the grate swings wider on every cycle. On a 44°F day with a light wind, expect a 14 lb bird to burn about 7 lb of pellets over three and a half hours. On a 25°F day with wind I’d plan on 9 to 10 lb.

Outside conditions	Preheat time	Pellets for a 14 lb bird	Extra cook time
Above 45°F, calm	15 minutes	Under 7 lb	None
44°F, light wind	15 to 20 minutes	About 7 lb	Little or none
25 to 30°F with wind	20 to 25 minutes	9 to 10 lb	20 to 30 minutes

Run the pellet calculator the night before and keep a full bag next to the grill, because a hopper running dry at hour three is a bad way to find out your estimate was low. Park the grill out of the wind with the hopper side downwind, and use an insulated grill blanket below 40°F if you own one. A whole turkey is big enough to sit over the hot end and the cool end at once, which is why the turn at hour two matters.

Gravy, sides and leftovers

A 14 lb turkey serves 10 to 12 with sides, or 8 if you want leftovers worth having. The drippings in the pan are smoky and already salted by the brine, so make gravy with them and taste before adding any salt. Smoked mac and cheese can go on the upper rack for the last hour at 300°F, and a smoked ham wants the same temperature, so both fit on one big grill for a large table.

Leftover turkey keeps three to four days in the fridge. Slice the breast and store it with some of its juice or a splash of stock so it doesn’t dry out, and reheat it covered at 300°F for about 15 minutes.

Pellets and thermometers for turkey

Cherry and pecan, half and half, is the mix I’d put in the hopper for any turkey. Cherry does the color and pecan carries enough smoke to taste under gravy. With only one bag in the garage, use pecan or apple on its own. The best pellets for smoking guide covers which brands are mostly oak filler with flavor oil.

This is the cook where a two-probe thermometer pays for itself, one in the breast and one in the thigh, plus an instant-read to check the other side before you pull. The models I’d buy for that job are in best wireless meat thermometers.