Thanksgiving Turkey Success!

Who made an awesome Turkey for Thanksgiving?  This girl.  

That's right.  Although I have never cooked a turkey before in my life I was able to pull this one off with a little help from the folks over at butterball.com.

Here are my keys to success:

1)  Thaw the turkey properly.  

For Christmas, we usually get a smoked turkey from Greenburg's in Tyler, Texas.  This is a fully cooked turkey so all you have to do is let it thaw.  Its in a paper bag and a box, so my dad usually sets it outside in the garage for a day if its cold outside.  It took a lot of convincing to get my dad to understand you could not do this with a raw turkey.  When I explained it needed to go in the refrigerator or cold water he would respond "but I just put the Greenburg in the garage."  Somehow the difference between a raw and a cooked turkey did not register with him.  I finally managed to convince him to put it in cold water for a while. 


2)  Brine


I went back and forth with a friend of mine on the brine issue.  He suggested I get an injector kit just in case.  I did NOT get an injector kit.  Instead the turkey was put in the following brine:

• 2 gallons cold water
• 10 ounces Kikkoman Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce
• 1/2 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons dried sage
• 2 tablespoons dried celery seed
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme

3)  Cooking

I put my turkey in a 350 degree oven for about 3 hours.  I tried to cook the turkey on the green egg but that wasn't working.  After trying for a half hour to get the temperature hot enough I just said forget it and threw it in the oven.  I thought it was going to take longer than three hours but the butterball people say to pull it out when the thigh meat reaches 180 degrees.  I checked it at 3 hours and it was higher than 180 so I pulled it out immediately.  

4)  Basting  

I came up with this on my own.  I was just going to put a little butter to brown the outside of it when I saw a leftover Shiner Bock in the fridge.  Doesn't beer make everything better?  I mixed the Shiner with some butter and basted my turkey every hour. 

The result?

The meat was juicy and tender.  The only problem was that the breast meat wasn't dry enough to make very good slices of meat. (My brother said it would have helped if I had an electric slicer.  I didn't really think ahead to the actual carving part of this scenario.)  Huge Success.  Everyone loved it.  Plus I had my family at my house and got to spend some much needed time with them.  I can't think of anything better than that.

Here's hoping everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving!