I’m a fan of brining. It’s the only way I’ll roast a turkey.
A brined turkey is a more moist, flavorful turkey.
I used to fear brines. I worried they’d make the turkey salty. I learned that if you pay attention to the amount of brining time (about 1 hour per pound), and if you keep the turkey ice cold as it’s brining, everything will turn out fine.
No matter how you cook your bird, brining will enhance the flavor, whether you fry the turkey, barbecue it, rotisserie it or roast it.
To brine a turkey, you should start the night before you plan to cook your bird. But first, you’ll need:
– A thawed, rinsed turkey – emptied of all the giblet sacks hidden inside the bird.
(Note: If your bird is frozen, put it in the refrigerator to thaw two to three days before you plan to brine it.)
– A container big enough to hold a completely submerged turkey. (I use a clean plastic bag – like a tall kitchen trash bag, then put the closed bag, sans air, into a big ice chest, weighted down with bags of ice.)
– The brine. See below.
Best Brine
- 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups kosher salt
- 2 gallons water
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 head of garlic, halved (as you’d cut an orange), skin and all
- 3 bay leaves, broken into pieces
- 1 small bunch fresh thyme (a good palm full)
- Few sprigs of rosemary
- 6 – 8 pepper corns
Combine salt, brown sugar and 2 quarts water in a large pot. Stir over medium heat until the salt and sugar is dissolved. Allow the liquid to come to a boil. Add the rest of the ingredients, including the remaining cold water.
(Note: To test whether you have the right salt/water ratio, set a whole, raw egg into the brine. The egg should float. If it sinks, you’ll need more salt. Dissolve about 1 cup salt in some boiling water, then add some ice water so you’re not introducing hot liquid to the turkey bath.)
Use two large (unscented, please) trash bags, putting one inside the other. (Just in case the one closest to the bird springs a leak.)
Place the turkey inside the double bags. Pour the liquid over the turkey, pressing out the air. Close the bag with a twist-tie (or tie a knot in the bag’s top).
(Note: It’s crucial that the entire turkey is completely submerged, with no turkey parts peeking out of the water. Picture a baby in a womb, surrounded by amniotic fluid. (Sorry, but that’s the image that works for me.)
Set the bagged turkey inside an ice chest, deep sink or other container where it can be kept cold (below 40 degrees). To maintain that healthy chill factor, cover the bagged turkey with sacks of ice, which will also help keep the bird submerged. Brine for 8 to 24 hours, depending upon the turkey’s weight. (Generally speaking, 1 hour per pound.)
To oven-roast:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove the turkey from brine. Rinse well to wash off all the brine. Dry the turkey. (Dump the brine.)
Massage about 2 to 3 tablespoons soft butter over the bird’s skin. Season inside and out with freshly ground pepper. Shove inside the bird’s opening a halved onion, a few broken celery stalks, a couple of carrots and a few cloves of peeled garlic.
Place the turkey in a deep baking- or roasting pan. Make a tent of foil and cover the breast.
Roast the turkey for about 1 hour, rotating the pan every 2o minutes or so (so the turkey will roast evenly). Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees.
Remove the foil and baste with the pan drippings. From here on out after the first hour, you’ll want to check the turkey’s temperature in the thigh area occasionally, being careful not to touch bone with the thermometer (which will totally screw up the reading). You want your turkey to reach the magic temperature of 165 degrees.
(Note: At around 160 I start thinking of removing the turkey from the oven, since the temperature will increase some as it rests.)
When it’s reached 165 degrees, remove the turkey from the oven, cover it with foil and let it rest for about 20 minutes before carving. (This buys you time to make the gravy.)
Editor’s Note: This is a best-of A News Cafe column that originally ran December 21, 2008.