Keri C's Apple Juice Brined Turkey


 

Keri C

TVWBB Wizard
This morning was my first bird of the year going to the outside world. I hooked into the LAN and worked from home while the WSM worked on the back porch. Featured player for the morning was a 12-lb turkey, brined 24 hours in 1 gal apple juice, 3/4 cup Morton K salt, 1/2 cup honey, 3/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar. Rinsed the bird VERY well inside and out with running water to remove all traces of the brine. Patted dry with towels and set to dry overnight in refrigerator. Went on WSM at 6:45 am this morning stuffed with onions, over 2 chimneys burning Kingsford, cherry pellets, and dry foiled waterpan. No oil, rub, or anything else on the skin, which resulted in a very nice skin texture. Easily maintained between 325 - 340 with vents half open. Came off a few minutes after 10:00 am, probably a little overdone as part of the breast had already hit 165 but, hey, that's what brining's for, eh? Anyway, wrapped in about 8 layers of HD foil, 2 heavy towels, and set to rest breast side down in pre-heated ice chest whilst I took a shower. Delivered about 1 1/2 hours after it came off the smoker and it was still too hot to handle with plastic gloves. A quote from my niece, at whose office the pre-Thanksgiving lunch was held:

Well, at least 3 people told me that it was the best turkey they had EVER had, so you were quite a hit...
Musta done something right, for once...
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Pictures weren't quite as sharp as I had hoped, but here 'tis.

Keri C, Smokin on Tulsa Time

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(And, no, I didn't glaze the bird with ANYTHING. When I pulled it out from its breast-side down rest in the foil, it really WAS this shiny.)

CAUTION - while this apple brine is great for roasted or smoked bird, it WILL tend to burn if you use if for frying a turkey. Use a brine with water and a lower sugar content for frying in order to avoid having a turkey-flavored meteorite.
 
Two 13-gallon Hefty kitchen trash bags (one inside the other) set down inside a 5-gallon plastic bucket. Bags are twist-tied such that most of the air is forced out of the bags. Ideally you can set the whole thing in the refrigerator, but my spare refrigerator is full of turkeys. So, instead, I set the bucket down inside an ice chest with ice mounded up about halfway around the bucket and a couple of frozen ice packs laying on top of the sealed plastic bags in the bucket. The apple juice in the brine came straight out of the refrigerator when I added it, so everything was cold starting out, and stayed that way very well.

If you have more than one turkey to do, you can double the trash bags, put a bird and a gallon of brine in each bag, and snug several bags upright next to each other inside an ice chest with ice packed around them. Depending on the size of the ice chest, you may need to pack some towels or something in around the sides to take up some of the extra room to keep the bags from slumping over.

When I've had more turkeys than available ice chests, I have been known to put the bird and the brine in the bags in the buckets, twist-tie the tops of the bags, pack ice around the bags inside the individual buckets, and let them sit in the garage, patio, bathtub, anyplace that dripping water won't hurt. Gotta remember to refresh the ice occasionally and keep everything icy COLD. Nothing worse than Thanksgiving guests getting the turkey trots...

There you go. Everything you wanted to know about my turkey buckets but were afraid to ask... I guess I could have answered your question in one short sentence, but where would have been the fun in that??? /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Keri C
Smokin on Tulsa Time
 
Keri, I am not familiar with "pellets"? I am going to do two turkeys for guests, one deep-fried; the other will be your little gem here. If I was to use Cherry chunks, like baseball size...how many should I use to not over power the bird? And the two chimneys, did you fire those up at the same time and dump them all in at once...set up the smoker with the bird in from the onset. Or did you wait for the temp to get there before putting the bird in...Sorry for the novice questions.... If the bird is a success I shall post your avatar at a place of honor at our table in humble tribute to your cooking expertise!
 
Keri, Did you use the standard 1/3 cup of pellets for the bird.
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Thanks Bryan
Todd, 2 baseball size chunks of Cherry should be plenty for the turkey. Bryan
 
Hey Keri,

Would your "speed brine" technique work as well on a turkey (recalling your speed cooked chicken string). I'm not getting to my mom and dad's until Wed. night. Mom's got a bird coming from a local free range grower, and I'd like to brine this big guy. What proportions of salt to apple juice would you suggest. I'd like to be able to give it some "air time" in the fridge, but might not happen. Will also likely go into the oven for roasting although I might be able to talk them into getting it on to the kettle.
 
Yes, I used the "standard" 1/3 cup pellets for this guy. Here's the pellets I use: BBQers Delight. You can usually find at least a few flavors of them at supermarkets. Walmart carries them under the Brinkman name, I think.

Yes, two chunks of cherry should be plenty. You don't want very heavy smoke.
 
Cooks Illustrated says that you can do a complete turkey brine in 4 - 6 hours using a ratio of 1 cup non-iodized table salt to 1 gallon of liquid. This is stout stuff, so don't leave it in there any longer than that. I still like to add some sugar to counteract some of the brine, so I'd say 3/4 cup white or brown sugar, 1 cup tablesalt, and 1 gallon of apple juice. Honey is optional.

Remove the turkey from the brine and rinse VERY well under cool running water inside and out, under the armpits, under the skin, etc. Pat dry inside and out with paper towels. Place turkey breast-side up on a flat wire rack set over rimmed baking sheet or roasting pan and refrigerate, uncovered, 8 to 24 hours or as long as possible to let the skin dry out.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> ...pack some towels or something in around the sides to take up some of the extra room to keep the bags from slumping over... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I used a tape gun to apply packing tape around mine to pick up the slack, worked great.
 
Keri,

I am curious as to the pellets. I have seen them at Wal-Mart, but have never used them.

1. How long do they last on a WSM? According to the website, they only last about 30 minutes. Is that accurate on a longer cook whereby you would be utilizing the Minion Method?

2. Is the smoke generated MORE than you would get with normal wood chunks, less than, or about the same as.

I really like the availability of flavors, and am very interested in trying some of the pellets - if they work okay.

My concern is just the time they burn. Changing the pellets out every 30 minutes just doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.
 
Brad, you don't need to change out pellet packets every 30 minutes. As Candy Sue (one of the owners of the BBQrs Delight company) mentioned to you over on the Forum, a Minion cook for butt or brisket should use a maximum of three foil packets containing 1/3 cup pellets each buried in the unlit charcoal plus one on the coals up front. I've never used more, and have often used less. I have been very pleased with their pellets, and I currently have bags of every "flavor" they make on hand. I'd say you get about the same smoke from a packet of pellets as you would a couple of small chunks of wood. I will use wood or the pellets interchangably, and sometimes together. Candy Sue has taken a 1st in brisket against the "big boys" in KCBS competition using a WSM and the Jack Daniels pellets, just as described here and on her Forum post. She has a free sample offer here on TVWB. Try them out. I've been using them ever since I got my first WSM, and am well pleased, ESPECIALLY with the alder pellets for use with fish, and the cherry pellets for chicken and turkey.

Keri C, smokin' on Tulsa Time
 
Keri,

This recipe was fantastic. Flavor and moisture that I've never seen in a Turkey!

I stuffed with apples and onions. For some reason, the smell of the onions didn't do it for me. I'll probably do more of a fruit combo next time.

I used Cherry BBQ pellets and smoke was excellent, but the flame eventually ate right through the HD foil - not sure when? Smoke was heavy for the first 45 minutes or so. Is it better just to use the porcelain container provided in the sampler pack vs foil?

Rich
 
Keri,

You said you poured the apple juice immediately after removing from the refrigerator. Most brining techniques I have seen require boiling the solution first, and then allowing to cool. I'm assuming you didn't do this?
 
Sometimes I'm lazy and don't get the brine made up ahead of time. The boiling and cooling process is to make sure that all of the solids are dissolved in the liquid, and that any flavoring additions made to the brine are steeped to their fullest flavor. In this brine, most times I just dissolve the salt and sugar in the apple juice by shaking it in an apple juice bottle or stirring the fool out of it, unless I'm doing a big batch of turkeys and am making a large amount of brine. In that case, I WILL simmer the sugar and salt with a relatively small amount of the apple juice and make what looks almost like a syrup of the concentrated brine ingredients, and then mix THAT into the rest of the apple juice to make the proper strength of brining liquid.

Keri C
 
I tried Keri's brine recipe a couple times last fall and it only takes a few minutes for everything to dissolve at cold temps. Gonna use it on some Fresh Farm Thanksgiving Turkey's we're getting from a local farm Sunday ~ It's goood!
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Keri...or anyone,

Ever thoughn of replacing the apple juice with Cherry juice in your brine? Might go good with cherry smoke or...if you don't have cherry wood you could still get some good flavor with cherry juice and apple wood.

thoughts?
 
Hmmmm... cherry juice? This sounds intriguing. I'm thinking maybe the cherry Juicy-Juice, which I think is actually a combination of apple and cherry juice. (I've used the peach flavor with ribs with great success.) It would be interesting to see what the color does to the meat. I have both apple and cherry wood, so I may just have to give that a try. Thanks for the idea, DW! May be a week or two, but I will definitely give that a shot. I have a turkey breast in the freezer, so that I that it will be the perfect candidate for a test run.
 
Keri,

Hey, it was just a wild notion. Let us know how it turns out. I really like the idea of using cherry pellets but I don't have any. No one in the area carries anything but apple and Jack Daniels and by the first of September they're not even carrying those. I was gonna try to get a package from BBQ'rs Delight but the shipping costs more than the packet.

So...I thought cherry juice in the brine and apple for the pellets. Might not get that nice mahogany smoke ring though.

If you do it far enough before Thanksgiving and it turns out good...I'll do my Thanksgiving turkey that way....so thank you
 

 

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