Brining you turkey

Good luck. I bought one of those expensive, natural turkeys for Thanksgiving and it was not good. Used my normal brine formula and did not like the way it turned out.

I will never buy another one of those again, it was a waste of money. Butterball here on out.

I saw in one those food shows where he soaked for 48 hours in brine and ice and just found the recipe. I don't know anything about brining so don't shoot the messenger

The link has the directions of how he brined it

Chucks brining process

I dry brined for the first time this thanksgiving. I will not go back to wet brining again.

Fried 2-Butterball fresh 12.5 lb turkeys and 6 lb pork loin Saturday. I do not like heavy salt flavor so went:
2 cups sugar
1.75 cups kosher salt
12 oz apple juice
Fresh cracked and whole peppercorns
Thyme, Rosemary, about 10 bay leaves that I broke up
Warmed up water, dissolved salt/sugar then added everything except water and let sit for 40 minutes in the pot then put that and 2.5 gallons of water on the birds and 10 lbs of ice.

The ice had melted significantly when pulling the first bird after brining 17 hours. The fresh Butterball only has water added to it, so would probably increase the salt to 2 cups or a little more to account for ice dilution, but still was great flavor. Threw the loin in the brine for 3-hrs then injected it and it was awesome.

As always, there's another view:

quote:

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There are a few distinct and definite downsides to wet-brining, and many folks are making the switch to dry-brining

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The Truth About Brining Turkey