John Sp
TVWBB All-Star
Hello All,
I am trying to catch up for the last couple of weeks. At TG every year we do a family reunion trip with Kari's side of the family. We get together with three large families and spend the week cooking, having fun, eating, playing, cooking, and did I mention cooking? This year we had 17 people. Each family takes a day and cooks dinner for everyone. On TG everyone pitches in to make a really fabulous meal. This year for our dinner I cooked chicken and sausage gumbo and I was in charge of the turkeys for TG dinner. I decided to try dry brining the turkeys for the first time and used this recipe for the process. I was much too busy (or maybe just enjoying myself too much) to take a lot of pictures so what you see below are just the highlights.
Gumbo Simmering (Chicken, Pork Sausage, Andoulli Sausage, Chicken Stock, Trinity, Bay Leaf, Okra, Benoits, and KS)
Gumbo Plated with Rice & Green Onion
14 Lb Turkey Dry Brined (KS), Rubbed (KS, Baking Powder, and BP), Trussed on a BGE Indirect over Lump with Cherry Chunks
Mid Cook Taking on Nice Color Basted Every 30 Minutes with Melted Butter (Running at 330)
Resting with Another Bird I cooked in the Oven
Plated with All the Sides That Everyone Else Cooked (including Kari's Lefse).
We had a great week of fun and family togetherness. Everyone's food was awesome. The dry brining technique will be my go to process from now on. It is easy and I thought the bird was both tender and juicy and did not have the textural issues I have noted with wet brine in the past. The rub really made the skin crispy (both on the smoked bird and the oven bird). I may go with a compound butter next time but all in all I think this was the best turkey I have ever cooked. Thanks for looking...
Regards,
John
I am trying to catch up for the last couple of weeks. At TG every year we do a family reunion trip with Kari's side of the family. We get together with three large families and spend the week cooking, having fun, eating, playing, cooking, and did I mention cooking? This year we had 17 people. Each family takes a day and cooks dinner for everyone. On TG everyone pitches in to make a really fabulous meal. This year for our dinner I cooked chicken and sausage gumbo and I was in charge of the turkeys for TG dinner. I decided to try dry brining the turkeys for the first time and used this recipe for the process. I was much too busy (or maybe just enjoying myself too much) to take a lot of pictures so what you see below are just the highlights.
Gumbo Simmering (Chicken, Pork Sausage, Andoulli Sausage, Chicken Stock, Trinity, Bay Leaf, Okra, Benoits, and KS)
Gumbo Plated with Rice & Green Onion
14 Lb Turkey Dry Brined (KS), Rubbed (KS, Baking Powder, and BP), Trussed on a BGE Indirect over Lump with Cherry Chunks
Mid Cook Taking on Nice Color Basted Every 30 Minutes with Melted Butter (Running at 330)
Resting with Another Bird I cooked in the Oven
Plated with All the Sides That Everyone Else Cooked (including Kari's Lefse).
We had a great week of fun and family togetherness. Everyone's food was awesome. The dry brining technique will be my go to process from now on. It is easy and I thought the bird was both tender and juicy and did not have the textural issues I have noted with wet brine in the past. The rub really made the skin crispy (both on the smoked bird and the oven bird). I may go with a compound butter next time but all in all I think this was the best turkey I have ever cooked. Thanks for looking...
Regards,
John
Last edited:
