Love a simple plan, here it is:
3 day dry or wet brine
3tbs salt and herb rub
13 lb bird
350 oven
3 hrs
30 min rest. For some 13lbs is not enough, have heard that you are then better off with 2 birds, hard to keep the big ones moist. 3 days to thaw btw, but too late for that and the brine-anyone else have tips or tricks?
Agree on the big birds drying out – I’ll be doing 2 birds, one young turkey (Maybe 10 lbs) which is going in “The Big Easy” oil-less turkey fryer and the other is a slightly larger bird (maybe 15 lbs) that will go in the roaster oven in a roaster bag.
Both birds will be injected with Wildlife Seasonings Turkey Fixin’s Cajun Style Marinade from Fleet Farm on Wednesday night (This stuff is SO AWESOME!). Letting it sit overnight sort of brines them from the inside I’ll then rub them with a salt-less cajun seasoning inside and out and under the breast skin before cooking.
Well, How’d they turn out ? We ate at Ma’s so it was an oven bird this year. Which is fine, all I had to do was the carving.
Traeger. 4 hours smoke at 165 and 2 hours at 350. My first bird this way and it was the best turkey I’ve ever had.
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25# turkey. Brined 24hours, spatchcocked, injected with Tony Catchers creole butter, seasoned lightly with Back Forty perfect poultry seasoning. Smoked at 250 for 7 hrs. Breast to 165*, thighs 175*. So juicy even the leftovers are moist!
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then birds look awesome!!!!!
We had a 18 lbs bird we deep fried that was amazing and a 13lbs bird we smoked. Which is the best sandwich meat I’ve ever had. But that deep fried bird made all my oven birds go to shame. I can’t believe I had never done that before
But that deep fried bird made all my oven birds go to shame.
I have heard that deep frying a wild turkey is also a good way to cook one. I don’t have a deep fryer that big so I haven’t tried it yet, but wild turkeys are tough and I have yet to find a great way to prepare one. Part of the issue is leaving the skin on, which means I have to pluck a wild turkey. That would be a lot of work.
Agree on the big birds drying out – I’ll be doing 2 birds, one young turkey (Maybe 10 lbs) which is going in “The Big Easy” oil-less turkey fryer and the other is a slightly larger bird (maybe 15 lbs) that will go in the roaster oven in a roaster bag.
How well does the Big Easy fryer work?
Deep fried turkey is my favorite but I don’t like the mess and clean up.
The Big Easy is pretty cool and works well! It’s basically a giant propane-fueled air fryer. The big advantages are less clean-up and you can save drippings. The bird always comes out beautifully brown, crisp and juicy. We usually carve the bird before it hits the table but the family was saying we should put it on the table whole and carve it a piece at a time like the old days because it looked so good.
You can cook other things with it too, and it comes with some accessories. But I find I have so many cooking tools that it pretty much sits in my basement storage room, November-to-November. Good to have around though!
I see it cooks up to a 16 pound turkey.
How long does it take to cook a turkey that size?
May depend on the air temp, it was a little colder this Thanksgiving so I think that added a bit to the time, but it should do a 16lb bird in 3 hrs or so. We did a 12-pounder and it took a little over 2hrs.
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