Curing a turkey help

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meateater

Legendary Pitmaster
Original poster
SMF Premier Member
Oct 17, 2009
8,983
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Hendertucky, Nv.
I'm thinking about curing a turkey "wet brine". Here's the idea, thaw and rinse the turkey and place in a food grade bucket to place in the fridge. I'm thinking one cup of kosher salt per gallon of distilled water and use enough to cover the bird. The brine will have been premade and in the fridge cold.  Then I'm thinking about adding 1/4 tsp. pink salt per pound of turkey. I'm hoping to pickle the bird for at least 5-6 days. What do you think. I want to long smoke the bird with my AMS 8-10 hours before cooking the buzzard.
 
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Using the amaz n smoker for a long low smoke you are going to need to go to cure #2.

Need to know the weight of the bird, but you are going to have to inject the leg joints, the thigh joint in the turkey cavity and both sides of the breast.
 
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Now I would like to know how this one comes out for sure.
 
I am quite curious myself, would really like to see the end result.  I'm not very familiar with cure #2 but why would you want to use it in this application?   Wouldn't cure #1 do the job?
 
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I'm gonna have to do some math on this one. Pops used 1 tbs of DQ which is pink salt which I have for a 12# bird. It say's 4 oz. for 100# . I know he's right just need to get the buzzard first and calculate the right amount. I have two gallons of brine in the fridge ready but will water it down at least 50% to cut down the salt. I brine a bird every year but never a cured bird, I'm looking forward to this year.
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Okay, maybe a dumb question, but what is the difference between a cured buzzard and a brined one?


Never a dumb question here, just ask and someone will explain. A brined bird is a bird thats soaked in kosher salt 1 cup per gallon roughly, I'll give a wiki that will explain more. A cured bird is like curing a pork loin, belly bacon, or a pork butt but also brining at the same time. With a bird you submerse it in a brine and a cure at the same time. Here's a link.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/wiki/brining-poultry
 
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Okay, thanks, I have brined quite a few chickens and turkeys I had just never heard of curing one.  So what is the difference between the instacures and this DQ, and instacure #1 wouldn't work because of the amount of time it sits in the brine?  So #2 could be used?  Sorry for all the questions but this has peaked my curiosity.
 
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i line the 5 gal bucket with a heavy duty garbage bag and use teryaki for the brine. add water between the bucket and the bag to displace the brine so you dont have to use near as much. i brine mine for 3 days. then smoke. the gravy is so rich its 2 die 4.
 
Okay, thanks, I have brined quite a few chickens and turkeys I had just never heard of curing one.  So what is the difference between the instacures and this DQ, and instacure #1 wouldn't work because of the amount of time it sits in the brine?  So #2 could be used?  Sorry for all the questions but this has peaked my curiosity.


 I no expert on this. I use Hi-Mountain buckboard bacon mix for CB belly bacon and buckboard bacon, only done a few myself. I use pink salt aka DQ for my jerky and snack sticks. I haven't used any tenderquick or instacure yet. I hope this one works out.
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