Smoked turkey legs are fun food, with a built in handle and tons of flavor. With this recipe, you can skip the theme park and make these at home in your own smoker or grill!
Carefully fold the skin back up and season the outside of the skin as well.
Smoke the turkey legs
Preheat your smoker or grill for an even temp of 225 - 250 degrees F.
Place the turkey legs on the smoker and close the lid.
After 30 to 45 minutes, begin spritzing the turkey with the mop every 30 minutes.
1 cup vinegar based bbq sauce mop
Cook until the turkey legs reach 165F with an instant meat thermometer, about 2 ½ to 3 hours
Serve
Remove from the smoker and rest for 10 minutes before serving.
Notes
Plan for one turkey leg per person. We recommend maple, pecan, or apple smoking wood chips or wood chunks for this recipe.What is a mop? A mop is the liquid you use to brush or sprizt meat with while smoking. It helps keep moisture in the meat as it cooks. We love our vinegar based bbq sauce as a standard mop for most barbecue but a 50 / 50 mix of apple cider vinegar and water work too. During the holiday season, I will do a ratio of apple cider, apple cider vinegar and water to spice things up.Turkey meat is fully cooked at 165F, but we like to cook it to 170 to 180 to help the meat get a little more tender. Unlike sliced turkey meat, turkey drums have lots of tendons that can feel like thin bones when eating. Just eat around them.You don't have to brine the turkey, and we tested these with a dry brine as well. But, we found that a wet brine helps the dark meat to stay tender and juicy.