What to use to brine a turkey?

T

TheFied

2,500+ Posts
I am going to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving this year. I am guessing I am going to start on Wednesday.

I want to brine the turkey. What do I put the turkey in to brine it? If I use a small cooler, will the thing reek of turkey forever afterwards? Use a styrofoam cooler instead?
 
A bucket works great if you have room to fit it in your fridge. If not, you have to constantly change out ice bags to keep the temp at 41 or below in order to prevent contamination. An ice chest helps maintain a desirable temp, but the rectangular shape means you need lots of brine solution to cover the bird. Salt, sugar & water are cheap, but If you use some booze in your brine solution then waste can be a concern. I usually do several birds at once which makes the quantity & cost of brine less of a problem. I freeze some refilled water bottles and cram them in the corners and along the edges in addition to using zip lock baggies filled with ice cubes.

When I am working with one bird I have found the best vessel for brining is a 5 gallon insulated water cooler. Use some bleach when you clean the ice chest or cooler to eliminate any odors.
 
I use a cooler with ice packs and put the turkey and brine in a plastic bag. Works great. Keeps the turkey cold which is mandatory and leaves the refrigerator for all the other holiday items. Provides plenty of room for one or more turkeys depending on the size of the cooler. No clean-up, just dispose of the bag. Also, you need less brine since you can pull the bag up around the turkey to cover it.
 
I bought a bucket at Home Depot that was large enough to fit a good-sized turkey in but narrow enough to fit in a fridge. It is used solely for turkey brining. If you wash it out good with dish soap and a garden hose when you're done, it won't smell at all.

The Link
 
I have room in my fridge to store the big food storage buckets. They are cheap at rest. supply places. Before that, I used to put them in a garbage bag, add some ice to the bag, stuff it in a cooler and put more ice over that.

If you haven't done this before, start here.

Brine it for at least 12 hours. Also, I have had great luck with them on the smoker if you take it out of the brine and let it dry out in the fridge, just sitting on a platter. This drying step really helps the skin get that perfect color and texture. Whenever I smoked one without letting it dry out in the fridge, it always ended up looking horrible.....solid black. Still tasted fine...looked not so pretty.
 
Hullabalew speaks the truth. I smoked one last year as a practice before Thanksgiving. I brined it the night before but didn't let it dry out. The turkey tasted amazing but it looked absolutely charred, like some practical joke.

For Thanksgiving, I brined it in advance and let it sit in the fridge the night before (per Hullabalew's recommendation). Threw the bird on the smoker and the skin was a perfect golden brown when done.

I'm going to go with a half brown sugar, half maple syrup brine this year. I used that same mix for some chickens a few weeks ago and it was amazing.

I too use the cooler method, but it takes an awful lot of brine to fill it up, so I'm going to go with some of the recommendations on this thread. FWIW, every time I've brined using spices, the taste has been unnoticeable, so I just go with salt, water, and something to sweeten it (honey, maple syrup, sugar, etc).
 
I realize the following info comes from an aggie prof, but it's important to understand that salt (as opposed to sugar, etc) is essential to the brining process:

The salt has two effects on poultry, reports Dr. Alan Sams, a professor of poultry science at Texas A&M University. "It dissolves protein in muscle, and the salt and protein reduce moisture loss during cooking. This makes the meat juicier, more tender, and improves the flavor. The low levels of salt enhance the other natural flavors of poultry."
 
There are several different brines listed on the Weber site I posted above, from simple to complex. Look under the whole turkey and the bone-in breast section. The apple juice one there is very good and very easy.

I routinely smoke 3 bone-in turkey breasts at a time, using the following recipe and they always come out perfect. I sometimes add oranges, cloves and whole ginger to it but have really never noticed that much of a difference. In my food storage bucket, it takes about 2 to 3 gallons of brine to cover 3 breasts. I usually replace 1 gallon of apple juice with a gallon of water. Again, haven't really noticed that much of a difference in the final product.
 
hulla,

where do you get your bone-in turkey breasts? I live in NW Austin and I'm having a helluva time finding a grocery store that has anything but basted frozen turkeys.
Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.
 
Alton Brown suggests brining in a cooler, in cold liquid, in a cool dry place.

he does now mention continually icing it down or refrigerating.


I am doing my first ever T-Day dinner this year, and it is very important that my mean pwn the one i always have to eat at my in=laws' house.
 
Meahorn - I live in Atlanta, but I never have trouble finding them at any time of the year. I always get mine a Kroger or Publix. They are always in the frozen area with the whole turkeys. My brother said that he had a harder time finding them in Dallas but he found them.

They weight 4 to 5 lbs and look like this in the grocery store.
turkey1.jpg
.

and this when you thaw them out.
turkey3.jpg

I usually pay about $8 -$9 bucks, but occassionally find them for about $5. I have tried the fresh ones from a meat market, but truthfully, they are a pain in the *** to deal with.
 
oh, i will be brining and frying.

this has to be badass right?

maybe I should practice on a turkey one week before or something.
 
Just double bag the turkey in two kitchen garbage bags. I much prefer a cooler in the garage and I use ice cubes as about half of my initial liquid, knowing it will help keep cold and gradually melt to get the end brine solution I want. Some fresh tarragon, honey, salt, bruised garlic cloves and something else I can't remember off hand.

Just put it all in the first bag and tie it tight taking most of the air out, then do the same thing with the second trach back and into the cooler. I usually freeze some large 2 gallon ziplocks about half full. Keeps the leaks/ condensation to a minimum.

I will say that once you learn how to brine a turkey you will never want to go back to conventional cooking with a nice dry breast or undercooked dark meat...
 
I didn't do it over Thanksgiving as I ended up fishing with my dad but will do it after Christmas... thinking of smoking it the day of the Holiday Bowl.

The website says to smoke it at 325-350F. Is that right? That seems alot hotter than I would have expected.

I am going to use a cooler for the brine. The virtual weber website recommends a ratio of 1 gallon cold water, 1 cup kosher salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar. Probably I guess need 2 gallons, I like the idea of using ice as well in the brine.

I am thinking of doing the following:

1) If I use a trash bag as some suggested, I guess I would put the turkey in the bag, add the water, salt, sugar... enough to cover the turkey completely. And then tie the bag up, maybe double bag while I'm at it. And then put the bag/turkey in the cooler with a bunch of ice. If I do this, I don't need to worry about using bags of ice. Correct?
2) Brine for 12 hours and make sure it is at 40F the entire time.
3) After brining, let dry in the fridge for how long?
4) How long do you guys let the turkey cool off before putting on the smoker?
5) Not sure what to use for my rub. Might use basic salt and pepper, not sure.
6) Smoke the turkey at ~300F until it gets 165F in the breast. 3-4 hours possibly?
7) Wrap in foil for 30min after cooking as it cools.

Sound about right?
 
Agree with Deadhead. We brined our turkey in a mixture of cherry/apple juice, bay leaves, garlic, salt, brown sugar, oranges, and some other stuff I don't recall.

None of the stuff imparted any flavor with the exception of the salt and brown sugar. We air-dried it in the icebox overnite, then smoked at 325 F for two plus hours in the Big Green Egg.

The skin was dark and the breast temperature was a little above what it should have been, but the meat was all very moist and tasty. I think we will do it again; perhaps a little injected something or other.
 
One thing I did on Thanksgiving was stuff some quartered oranges in the cavity. Helps to keep the meat moist and seemed to add just a hint of flavor. As stated above, nothing in the brine ever really adds much to the taste, as far as I have found, at least on the whole turkeys. The bone-in turkey breast is another matter.

I have tried with and without rubs and really can't tell the difference in the taste. The thing about doing the bone-in breasts is you can experiment by doing each one differently. I usually make 3 each time.
 
Nope. Still brine, definitely. I may try to brine and then inject one for Christmas, but do not leave out the brining and drying step.

I used maple wood this T-giving but didn't like it. I'm going back to apple for Christmas. I like hickory and oak better than maple.
 
Hulla, so I am going to do the brine tomorrow.

It appears that the theory behind brining is you have salt in the meat and then surround it in a mixture that has more salt (brine). The salt in the meat will want to reach an equilibrium with the salt in the mixture so the brine goes in the meat. And with the brine goes what else you have in the brine (brown sugar, spices...).

But Hulla, you are saying that for a whole turkey nothing that you put in the brine mix seems to add any flavor. Then why brine for a whole turkey?
 
In my experience, brine does add flavor, but the main benefit is the added moistness. Last time I brined a chicken with some honey and cinnamon (in addition to salt and water), and you could definitely taste those flavors. It's hard to gauge how much to flavor the brine. Like smoking something, you usually err to not overdo it.

I found a cheap food-grade plastic storage bin at Target that is just big enough to fit a turkey and go in the fridge.
 
The last turkey I did was brined for 3 days - it turned out great. Anymore and you start risking the meat started getting a chalky texture from the salt breaking things down.

If you put enough brown sugar in the brine, you will taste it. None of the other stuff makes a difference in my experience. If you get your salt and water ratio right, it is hard to screw it up with additional stuff (sugar, honey, spices).

The thing you are getting by brining is 1) making the meat moister 2) the salty flavor (which really enhances the flavor of the meat) 3) makes it a little harder to screw up. I'm not sure I believe the "pulling" in the other flavor hypothesis. If you have enough of a flavor component, it will eventually permeate through the meat regardless of salt content.
 
In my experience, adding things like clove and cinnamon don't add to the flavor. I use the apple juice recipe from the WSM site (salt, sugar, brown sugar, honey) and add some maple syrup. I've added other spices and couldn't tell the difference. Just my experience.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top