A tale of two turkeys

We had 19 people over for Thanksgiving dinner, so I cooked two turkeys. One in the oven and one in the charcoal grill. They would have both fit into the oven side by side since I prefer birds that are in the 12-14 lb range, but variety is the very spice of life & all that.

The verdict: I pronounce you both guilty! Of being delicious, that is. They were different of course. The oven version, cooked mostly breast-side down @ 325 F. was very juicy and really as good as one could hope for. The grilled one I cooked breast-side up the whole way since the coolest part of the grill is the top and the breast requires the least heat. The meat was a little bit less moist than the oven one, but it was reasonably juicy and one can put extra gravy on it. The main difference was that it had a strong but pleasing smokey bouquet.

The verdict, based upon which one got eaten-up the most is that the oven one won. Deep down I know that really the grilled one is better, so like a climate "scientist", I'll just water-board the data a little and come with a new verdict: People are good and as such, they naturally wanted to eat up the less desirable turkey to leave the best for others. That's the ticket!