Planning the bird

[ksmith9]

Sorry if this is a double post but I'm hoping this will be helpful eventually for all. I want to smoke the turkey, but I want to brine the turkey for a solid 24-72 hrs. How soon do I start thawing the turkey prior to putting it in the brine? I'm trying to figure out when to buy the turkey so it's not old but not thawed too soon or brine too soon

 

[TulsaJeff]

Turkeys usually thaw at a rate of about 5 pounds per day.

Having said that, it never hurts for the bird to be slightly frozen in the center when it goes into the brine.

 

[ksmith9]

Turkeys usually thaw at a rate of about 5 pounds per day.

Having said that, it never hurts for the bird to be slightly frozen in the center when it goes into the brine.

Is there such a thing as sitting in too much brine? I'd like to brine 3 days...is that too much?

 

[TulsaJeff]

I never brine longer than about 12 hours as it seems to change the texture of the meat too much.

I have heard people say they brine a lot longer but can’t really speak from experience here.

Maybe someone else will pop in here and help us out with this question.

 

[schlotz]

I would suggest doing an equilibrium brine but remember to reduce the meat weight in the calculation by approximately 33% which would be the bones.

 

[Mattmilw]

Turkeys usually thaw at a rate of about 5 pounds per day.

Having said that, it never hurts for the bird to be slightly frozen in the center when it goes into the brine.

I typically buy turkeys in the 20lb range. Mine always take longer to thaw than the 4-5 lbs rule. I move them to the fridge on Wednesday, the week prior. I don't know if the size factors in, but that's consistently my experience.

 

[tallbm]

Sorry if this is a double post but I'm hoping this will be helpful eventually for all. I want to smoke the turkey, but I want to brine the turkey for a solid 24-72 hrs. How soon do I start thawing the turkey prior to putting it in the brine? I'm trying to figure out when to buy the turkey so it's not old but not thawed too soon or brine too soon

I would start defrosting in a fridge at LEAST 5 days before. These are 18-24 pound turkeys I'm usually doing.

I've brined for 3 days with no issue that I knew of BUT I also add cure #1 these days to my turkey brine so I don't have any recent recollection of any texture changes. Cure#1 alone does things to texture but in the great way cure#1 does it.

I do equilibrium brines at 1.65% on my birds. An equilibrium brine is where in grams or ounces, you take the weight of water + weight of bird. Then multiply by 0.0165 (which is 1.65%) and that will give you the weight of the salt to use. Easy and never any over salting.

I dissolve by putting some water in the blender with the salt and run it till its like 80-90% dissolved then I pour it in with the rest of the water.

Finally, I inject that brine into the bird all over so it speeds up brining and more evenly brines all over faster.

This whole process is followed even when I use cure#1 at 1.1333gms per pound of TOTAL weight (water + bird).

I hope this helps. Ask any questions you have :)