We used a 10.8 pound fresh turkey from our local butcher. It was the moistest turkey we ever made.
- turkey
- kosher salt
- honey
- sugar
- spices (optional - use anything you like)
- water
- 2 2.5 gallon zip lock bags for an 11 pound turkey
Wednesday
5:00 p.m. Prepare the brine.
11:30 p.m. Put turkey in brine – refrigerate.
Thursday
8:30 a.m. Remove turkey from brine. Dry, place uncovered in refrigerator.
1:00 p.m. Cook turkey.
- We prepared the brine using a cold water method, placing the salt and sugar in the water a few hours prior to putting the turkey in the brine. The salt dissolved. We used:
- 1 cup kosher salt
- 1/4 - 1/3 cup mix honey and sugar
- 1 gallon water.
- Right before we put the turkey in the brine, we added a few spices (we couldn’t really taste these in the cooked turkey): bay leaves, a few cloves, about a teaspoon each of rosemary, sage, and thyme.
- We removed the organs from the turkey cavities and washed and patted dry the turkey.
- We placed the turkey in double 2.5 gallon zip-lock bags.
- We poured the brine into the bags and sealed them so that as much of the bird as possible was covered by the brine. We put the bird/brine into a big pot (in case the bags leaked) and put it in the refrigerator.
- The bird remained in the brine in the fridge overnight for about 9 hours.
- In the morning, we took the turkey out of the brine, rinsed and dried it, and threw away the brine mixture.
- We put the turkey, uncovered, into the refrigerator to sit for 4 hours. It was recommended that it sit uncovered for 8 hours to produce a more crispy brown skin. (I’m not sure if this has anything to do with brining.)
- We put the turkey in the oven (upside down – again, not sure this has anything to do with brining) at 325 degrees. It took 3 hours plus to reach 165 degrees. It got very brown and crispy, so we put a loose foil tent over it the last 45 minutes to an hour. Next time we may try to turn it the last hour to brown the breast side.
- We let it rest 20 minutes before carving.
It was fantastic! Three sites we reviewed when trying to figure out how to do this:
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