Another Turkey Question Regarding Brining

Everyone has their own formula for brining. But the basics are soaking it in salt water before cooking. Salt opens the pours of poultry and increases tje capacity for holding in moisture when it's cooked. It also changes the muscle and makes it absorb flavors better. We can't get too creative with ours...it upsets the traditionalists in our family. :) So we soak the turkey in a salt water mixture overnight. We used 1.5 cups of kosher salt to one gallon of water. The turkey needs to be fully submerged. The trickiest part is also keeping it refrigerated. We used to used a large picnic cooler. We'd clean and sanitize the cooler, make the brine, submerge the turkey and then fill ziplock bags with ice to pack around the turkey. We did it this way a few years in a row. It's a little hassle, because my MIL worries and checks the ice often. Last year we bought a 5 gal paint bucket from the hardware store and made the brine in that. (Of course we thoroughly cleaned and sanitized it first). With a little wiggling, our turkey fit in the bucket. We had a college fridge we used just for the turkey, but if we had to we could move the shelves in the fridge to make it work. Like the other poster mentioned, you can add a lot of stuff to your brine for interesting flavors, I imagine a google search will give you lots of ideas.

I'm wondering if I am that one that mentioned it? :)

I use a recipe from either Alton Brown or America's Test Kitchen....can't remember off the top of my head which it is. It is basically salt water, but you can add other flavors to really infuse the turkey. We usually brine in a huge pot, but that is for chickens. There are brining bags for just this sort of thing, I have used crockpot liner bags, or the suggestion of a big plastic bucket works too, depending on the size of the turkey. Just make sure that the turkey can stay submerged, and that it can fit in your fridge.

Here is the brining part from a recipe I found online:

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups kosher salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 fresh, whole, bone-in, skin-on turkey breast (6- to 8-pounds), rinsed and prepared according to illustrations 1 and 2 below

1. Mix salt and sugar in 1 1/2 gallons cool water in large clean bucket or stockpot until completely dissolved. Set turkey breast in brine, making sure it is submerged. Cover and refrigerate 5 hours.

I have used this Apple Cider brined turkey recipe from Cooking Light for several years now and our family thinks it makes the yummiest, juiciest turkey ever: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action...

Good luck!

For the past few years we have used the brining recipe from the San Francisco Chronicle -- you can find it at sfgate.com. It has salt, sugar, herbs, dried juniper berries, and pepper corns. We have really liked the results! We usually line our cooler with a good quality trash bag (not recycled plastic or biodegradable), add turkey (we use fresh-- if frozen, it should be thawed) and brine, close up bag, then pile on ice. We leave the cooler in the basement. The turkey has stayed plenty cold -- no spoilage problems at all. When you cook the turkey, the breast stays so much more moist! We have also cooked a brined turkey on our Weber charcoal grill -- also very tasty!

I never tried but my boss was talking about this just last month. He did a trial run. Recipe had apples, cider vinegar, brown sugar and sugar, salt and a bunch of other herbs. He said to go buy a plastic bucket (like at a hardware store) with a lid, brine in that and store in a refrigerator. He had the turkey brine overnight.

We deep fry our turkey for Thanksgiving and found there are many recipes for brining. All are different but they all require salt and an overnight brine. I would definitely recommend finding a recipe though. Alton Brown and Emeril have recipes we've tried previously and liked. You can store the turkey in the refrigerator or a cooler with ice.

I think I used a brining recipe from the Cook's Illustrated Best Recipe cookbook. I'll also brine a whole chicken before roasting. Since last year, I just used the Williams-Sonoma brine mixture. If your brining recipe requires adding boiling water, just give yourself enough time to allow the mixture to cool completely before you add the turkey. Space is definitely a challenge because the turkey needs to be fully submerged, and we don't have an extra refrigerator. If the temp is below 40 degrees, I'll brine the turkey outside in a paint bucket we bought from Home Depot just for brining. One year I had to wait until midnight for the temp to drop. Last year, I also bought the brining bags from Williams-Sonoma and set the bag (with turkey) in the roasting pan and brined in the fridge. It took up a TON of space. I wouldn't advise doing that unless your guests are making a lot of the side dishes so your fridge doesn't have as much food/ingredients. I'm not sure we could taste all of the flavors in the W-S brine (cloves, star anise, etc), but brining REALLY keeps the turkey from drying out. My husband likes stuffing in the bird, which always extends the cooking time, but brining is very forgiving to those long cook times. Good luck and have fun!

My husband brines our turkey every year and it is the best. You got a lot of ideas on recipes, I just thought I'd share with you what we've found to be the best to brine the turkey in. We use one of those large round igloo drink coolers, the one with the spout to get the liquid out. The turkey fits in there perfectly enough and luckily it is cold enough outside that we just leave it outside.