Stop me if this sounds familiar. It’s a Thursday in late November. The Cowboys or Lions are playing in the background. Everyone is dressed in their party best. The aromas of entrees and sides are as vibrant in your mind as the fall themed decor to your eyes. Friends and family are greeting and grinning, all thankful to be together. Out of the oven the centerpiece of the celebration appears, the skin a golden brown. The knife is rasped across the sharpener and the breast is sliced. You fill your plate with mash potatoes, honeyed yams, and turkey, but no gravy as you are trying to keep your waistline in check. You take a bite of the turkey and give your jaw a work out trying to choke the firm fowl down. Waistline be damned, you reach for gravy boat because that oven baked bird is dried out yet again.

If this is the dried out and chewy cherry on top of your Thanksgiving celebration every year, then you need to start grilling that bird. And in this case, grill it over a beer can so there is no way the turkey is dry, even the breast. The turkey in the picture above is not only beautifully browned, but also glistening, it is so moist even after resting for 30 minutes. There are many ways to do grilled turkey, but this is probably the simplest and one of the best. Now is the time to perfect your beer can turkey for Thanksgiving. And the topper, is turkey is low carb so you can load up on the bird without the carbs.

Beer Can Turkey Ingredients:

13 lb turkey

Your favorite BBQ rub

Salt and pepper to taste

24 ounce can of your favorite beer

As you can see, you will also need an aluminum pan and a turkey baster.

You see there are no amounts here because it is so simple that we don’t need to measure anything out exactly.

The first step is to thaw out the turkey properly which means doing so in the refrigerator over a few days. There should be some directions on how long on the back of the turkey packaging. This may in fact be the most complicated part.

Next up, cut this thing away from the legs:

Also, remove the innards and give the turkey a rinse and pat it dry with a paper towel.

I removed that little pop up thermometer as I will be using my Thermapen Instant Read Thermometer, but you can leave that plastic deal in if you like:

She’s ready for some rubbin’, with her wings tucked in to keep them from cooking faster than the rest of the bird.

Now coat the front of the turkey with salt, pepper, the rub:

Now crack that fat can of beer and pour off a few ounces into a glass for the grill master and place the turkey over the can:

I bet you’re wondering why I didn’t rub the whole bird before putting it on the beer can. Because if I rubbed one side, then flipped it over to rub the other, a bunch of the rub from the first side I coated would stick to the cutting board and require me to re-apply. Coat one side, prop it up on the beer can in the pan and coat the other side.

Now prepare the grill for two zone or indirect grilling with a target internal temperature of the grill of 300 degrees with coals and smoke wood on one side and the bird on the other. In this case, I used my Char-Griller AKORN which is a kamado style grill and thus I used a plate setter (in this case, called the Smokin’ Stone) to deflect the heat away from the bird, but I had one problem. I placed the turkey on the grill grate and couldn’t close the lid. My tower of turkey was too tall. Instead, I took the grill grate out and placed the disposable pan and turkey right on the smokin’ stone, giving me the room I needed to close the lid:

Now my beer can turkey fits in the grill:

I tossed some smoke wood in, in this case fresh cut apple (yes you can smoke with green wood), but any of the lighter fruit woods would work such as apricot, peach, and pear. For the most complete list of smoke woods on the web, click here to see the one I came up with along with what meats and veggies each wood pairs well with.

Now close the lid and let the heat and smoke work its magic:

After an hour of grilling the beer can turkey is looking fantastic:

And now for the turkey baster and why the bird is in the aluminum pan, to collect the juices to be be added back to the bird:

***Pro Tip ~ After the bird was grilled 90 minutes, I was worried about the top of my beer can turkey browning too much so I applied a sheet of foil to deflect the heat***

Grilling time will vary depending on the size of your turkey and heat of the grill. The back of the packaging for this bird said that a 13 pounder would take close to four hours at 300. But this beer can turkey hit 160 at just under the three hour mark:

Some of you will mention that poultry needs to be grilled to 165 before being removed from the heat. But I let this bird rest for 30 minutes at which point the internal temperature rose the last 5 degrees to 165.

After the resting period, which allows for the juices inside to calm down from an excited state and redistribute throughout the turkey which also helps to ensure that each bite is moist, the bird is ready to carve:

If you are searching for the perfect thanksgiving turkey recipe, this is it. It frees up the oven for a pan of green bean casserole or some candied yams. It also guarantees a juicy turkey every time since the beer continually bastes the bird from the inside as it is grilled. And it’s low carb.

If you have any questions about this grilled beer can turkey recipe, leave them below or shoot me an email, even if it’s Thanksgiving. If I see the message, I’ll be sure to get back to you as soon as I can. But email me too late, and I very well might be dozing on a recliner after a juicy bird bender!

