I know winter is not high time for outdoor cooking, but I thought I'd post an update based on what I've done over the last month.
As noted in my previous post, I now have an automated, electric smoker - set the time and temperature you want, insert food and woodchips, and go do whatever you want for the next several hours until the food is done.
I've been curious about doing a turkey in the smoker - especially how it would do with "stuffing" (aka 'dressing'). A friend of the wife gave us a small (~4kg) turkey for Christmas (at least small by US standards - most turkeys I see in the store are between 5 and 10 kg, with 10+kg examples not uncommon). So I figured I'd give it a shot - I basically prepped it the same way I would if it had been going in the oven with as much stuffing as I could fit in both ends. I then put it in the smoker at 230 deg F and set the timer for five hours. The result was fantastic - absolutely fantastic.
I really like the stuffing and it was great as well - the mild smoky flavor to the stuffing was a pleasant addition.
Today, I did a 'beer butt' chicken - using the 'sitting chicken'. Put most of a can of room temp cheap beer (Bud Light) in the sitting chicken - dumped the balance that didn't fit into the water in the water pan that goes below the food. 4 hours at 230 F. Also very favorable results - and I used the meat thermometer to do check on the beer in the sitting chicken after I pulled it out. I measured ~185 F in the beer (or what was left of it) - basically the same temperature as what I was measuring for the chicken itself.
As the boiling point of ethanol is about 174F, there is no question the alcohol boiled off in the sitting chicken, and I could readily smell a beer 'aroma' when I removed the chicken from the smoker. Now, this was a four hour low temp smoke, not an hour in the oven so your mileage may vary
. But at least for the way I use it, beer butt busted is BUSTED