Brining

I haven't had much problems deep frying a turkey. I don't think any of the deep fried turkeys I've cooked have come out bad. Then I tried brining one. Wow! What a difference! When I carved into my first brining experience all this juice came out and I thought I hadn't cooked it long enough. Well I did and the brining made it come out very juicy.

2002

The brine I used was just kind of tossed together. I used a cup of non-iodized table salt (=2 cups kosher salt), about 1/2 cup brown sugar, some black peppercorns, some dried rosmary and the juice of three lemons from our tree.

I thought the turkey (~15lbs) would fit in one of our soup pots, but it stuck out about a third out of the top. The best fit I could find was to stick it in one of those big round tins you get three flavors of popcorn in (and they are all stale by the time you get down to the bottom). I lined the tin with a turkey oven bag. Sources say you shoudn't use garbage bags, because they aren't meant for food (and I didn't), but I have friends that have used them.

I put the salt in a 2 cup measurer, and filled the rest of it with hot water. Stirred, poured the liquid into the container, added more hot water to the salt left in the bottom, stirred and poured and by the third round all the salt had dissolved into the hot water. I added some cold water and added the brown sugar and stirred that until it dissolved. Then I added the other ingredients. Popped in the turkey and added water to cover.

I had to remove a shelf, but it fit in the refridgerator just fine. Let it sit for 18 hours. Some water leaked out. I think it came out of the top of the bag, even though I twisted and clipped the top.

2003

I used 2 cups of kosher salt. It takes about 1 quart of hot water to dissolve 1 cup of kosher salt. I put in a cup (1/2 jar) of Chef Williams Cajun Injector's Original Injector Cajun Hot 'n Spicy Butter. It is meant to be injected into the meat, but we'll see how it works as a marinade. I also squeezed in a lemon from our backyard, just for good measure and because I had it on hand. It took 11 quarts of water to cover the turkey. And it floats slightly. I also kept it on the bottom shelf of the refridgerator because of the weight.

The marinade wasn't too spicy. I'll have to get a better recipe for next time.