Experi-fail, Thanksgiving Edition

I posted the other day about deciding to grill/smoke a turkey. Today I did the trial run.

The turkey was edible, and there was a certain novelty, but all in all, it was not a triumph.

• It was rather a lot of work, including some butchery that was more than my kitchen shears and small hands could take on easily.
• The smoke flavor was mild in the dark meat, and completely absent from the breast meat.
• There were next to no drippings in the water pan I set up for that purpose, so I had to use the 'gravy bag' that comes with the turkey*. Meh.

As far as experiments go, I'm calling this one a fail, as it did not give me a viable option for Thanksgiving Day. I have many ideas of how it might be improved upon, if I have another low-risk opportunity to do the experiment again (work with turkey parts, adjust temps, start with boiling water in the drip pan to increase moisture in the system...) - but for the big day, I will stick with the tried and true.

*It turns out that my sons love that over-processed stuff the gravy bag makes. They claim it tastes like a pot pie.