- a turkey is a HUGE bird
- people only cook turkey once a year
- most guidelines for cooking turkey overcook the turkey
- most people are terrified of undercooking poultry
Trying something once a year isn't usually great for learning. It's a long feedback cycle and cooking for a special occasion disincentivises risk taking/experimentation. Same goes for risk of inflicting food poisoning for a large group. Cooking something so large is sufficiently different from roasting a chicken (for example) that people lack confidence/get it wrong.
This leads to the quaint cultural tradition of millions of people overcooking their turkey on thanksgiving in the US and on Christmas in the UK.
That said I always thought the US generally ate turkey more so their turkey game was better.
Fwiw my turkey has never been dry but I come from a family of cooks.
However I rarely do it for thanksgiving if extended family are coming (at least the wrong ones).
I’ve had them freak out a out the juice, about the little “done timer” not going off, about internal color etc.
In one case I had an aunt demand it go into an oven and sure enough overcooked it (which is why I now often don’t make one for extended family).
People do similar with pork and ribs and such. I’ve never had an issue and still cook my meat to certain temps etc. but it’s one of those things everyone’s an expert on.
I will say that those that have eaten my smoked turkey, ribs, Boston butt etc tend to like it, if not prefer it, but that’s never been enough to deter some naysayers.
That said, it’s also why I like dark meat. Can’t stand dry meat that’s not jerky.
But a thermometer has been great for steaks and others. But even they kinda lead you to overcook. Like the Weber iGrill will want you to run the temp up to 165 on poultry. But on a smoker it’s an extended period of time over heat, not a grill with a quick jump to a temp.
The meat at 150 for 1-2 hours+ it’s fine. I usually do about 1 hr per pound on the smoker and the breast at/above 150 for an hour or more.
165 is the generic guideline given for cooking chicken, however 160 for 15 seconds is just as effective at getting the desired kill on salmonella, or 155 for 48 seconds.
https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-s...
Almost any other part of the turkey is gonna be 160+, especially near any bones.
Sometimes the juice isn’t always clear. But I’ve never had an issue.
I’ve found carving it out of sight also means folks don’t see the juice / pinker sections until they hit the table. Maybe an option to avoid the whining and overkill cooking? :) Good luck.
I cooked the turkey last year. My thermometer said it was good, but that popup hadn't popped.
I knew those popup indicators were unreliable, but the fear of feeding people raw poultry compelled me to put it in the oven for another long while. It came out dry and stringy and the damn timer still didn't pop.
I never use them for anything.
What’s funny is I have a little Bluetooth thermometer. I can literally graph and monitor the meat temp without pulling the blanket or lid off the smoker.
I take an old comforter and wrap the smoker in it once the meat is on. Just serves to somewhat insulate but mostly hold a lot of the smoke. With nothing on it, things on the lower rack would hardly get a good “Smokey” flavor. The blanket makes a surprisingly good addition.
Basically I point those folks to the microwave.
the turkey we eat a lot of generally isn't a whole bird, its mostly lunch meat
that said my bird was moist.
Imported from America in C19, for what it's worth. I realise that's arguably long enough ago to be both tradition and quaint, but my point really is it's not the only way/a must/centuries old (well ok, one or two). Poultry more so/further back, really it's just a feast day though, have whatever.
You really want to make sure the white meat never gets above 145 F ish. The easiest way to do this is with sous vide but you can it other ways if you follow the process correctly. With sous vide it is basically impossible to mess up.
My Process:
1) Carve raw turkey in to major pieces like you would a chicken.
2) Place white breast meat in one plastic bag. Dark in a second bag
3) Add some salt/pepper or other spices to bag, along with some butter or fat/oil.
4) Remove air from bags as best you can
5) Sous vide at 145 F for 3 hours
6) Remove white meat bag from water, Raise temp to 165 for 2 more hours
7) At this point meat it done and can be refrigerated for a day or two.
8) Remove meat from bag, put in large dish under broiler until skin is crisp.
At least in chicken, multi-drug resistant salmonella is still a problem that kills people in the US. The government’s approach to food safety assumes you will follow the guidelines and cook to 165 while religiously following anti-cross-contamination measures, rather than actually pursuing food safety. Maybe turkey is the exception, but I have my doubts.
https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2021/10/americas-food-safe...
A nice overview: https://blog.thermoworks.com/chicken/thermal-tips-simple-roa...
No one would legitimately try to cook a chicken by keeping it at room temperature forever, you still want cooked meat — it’s just that 165 overcooks it. For breast meat, you typically want 150, and you can hold it there for enough to kill salmonella.
In my own life, my struggle is with loved ones who recklessly disregard basic safety advice, so I’m overly on guard for it. E.g. not wearing seatbelts level of recklessness (I really wish I was making that up), in addition to not bothering with the meat thermometer at all.
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/import/Salmone...
look at page 35
because you can hold things in sous vide indefinitely you can do 145 for as long as makes you comfortable.
1) Break bird into parts. Thighs, breasts, tenderloins and “everything else” each into their own bag.
2) Butterfly the breasts and lay them over the skin. Rub with salt, butter and whatever herbs you like. Roll breasts and skin up into a roulade. Refrigerate for 2 days.
3) Sous vide breast roulade at 140 for 4-5 hours then deep fry.
4) Separately, braise the legs/thighs in red wine and mirepoix.
5) Use the bones/gizzards to make gravy.
6) Toss the tenderloins in the freezer for another day.
Ideas courtesy of Serious Eats. Works very well but does require a lot of upfront work. The results are worth it though.
155 to 160 can be kindof a trade-off if you want to do the whole bird. Government guidelines are 165 minimum but when going over 160, white meat starts to get noticeably dry. Still, if you really want to follow government guidelines, sous vide to 165 and not one degree more is not that bad compared to oven until center is 165 which puts outer meat at like 180 or more and clearly overcooked.
The kettle has briquettes on two sides and the bird sits on a frame between them, with something underneath to catch the juices. Because the heat is indirectly from the sides, there aren't hot spots as such.
This is fire-and-forget cooking: once the coals are hot and the chicken is positioned, I can put the lid on and leave it alone for two hours, when it will be ready. If you're looking, it's not cooking.
I usually do that with my chicken, which also comes out nicely, so I guess I was pretty used to it. But it's honestly pretty easy, and I agree, much faster to cook well.
My other real tip is to just spatchcock and season the skin night before and let the skin dry out in the fridge. Makes for nice, crispy skin. I drizzled butter over the skin twice during the cook, and the color came out beautifully
I also used an injection for the first time instead of brining, which was easy.
I suspect I could have cranked up the heat and got this 14 1/2 lb bird cooked in 3 1/2 hours, no problem. It actually feels quite forgiving.
I learnt that a few years ago for whole chickens from a Gordon Ramsey video. Best tip!
The thighs took the brunt of the abuse from the heat source, and the vertical temp gradient in the smoker (and the orientation of the breast) ensured that the white meat cooked slowly and gently. The canal allowed its own updraft of hot air also, which cooked the turkey inside and out and let me pull it without having to wait for the “cavern of cold” to heat up. There was also no evaporative cooling in the vertical position like there is in the horizontal (usually a pool of liquid forms in the canal which causes me to have to really abuse the turkey with heat to cook it through. Not so in the vertical position.)
Pulled it with the breast at ~155 and thighs at ~167. Best turkey I’ve ever done.
For proper family Thanksgiving, my family kind of suffered through dry turkey for years. Not really realizing there was room for improvement. My extended family is huge so we always had atleast two turkeys, usually one done by grandma and one by the host. Some years back my dad found this new turkey cooking kit he wanted to try when we hosted. It came with a needle, marinade and a new contraption for cooking the turkey. The turkey was universally loved by the family and everyone felt bad for disliking my grandma's traditional one so much in comparison.
The new device my dad had found was a turkey deep fryer. This was years before every single fire department around the country universally panned them and all the videos of people burning their houses down came out. But it is easily the best turkey I've ever had and if I'm ever cooking turkey for Thanksgiving will be the method I use. Family Thanksgiving have been on the smaller sides in recent year, but I plan to do as much research and buy the safest one if I ever get put in charge of making the turkey.
The single best turkey i've ever had came out of a Big Green Egg hybrid smoker thing, which is kind of ungodly expensive so I don't own one, but does an excellent job at cooking thick cuts and whole birds and the like.
for the turkey i did a dry brine with Tony cachere creole seasoning, injected with creole butter and basted with maple syrup.. also spatchcoked it, which isn't the most pleasant thing to experience but I won't ever keep a turkey whole again, cooked much quicker and more evenly
+ Put the bird in a roasting pan
+ Put foil over the roasting pan.
+ Cook at 450F
+ For the last 30 minutes, remove the foil
Fortunately there was a pizzeria a mile away, or it might have been Squirrel Soup on the menu that night. :)
Bibliography:
The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, copyright 1963, Hearst Corporation, LOC 16-15315, page 282.
Despite what you put in a parallel comment, “low temps” aren’t what dry meats out. Jerky is dry because it’s cooked radically longer than you’d cook the equivalent meat for a dinner plate.
It’s pretty obvious rationally that cooking a turkey at a higher heat for longer is going to overcook it. That’s especially humorous given your note about how the turkey packaging is optimized for food safety: if they’re confident that 325 at 15minute/lb is enough to be safe, why the heck are you aiming for hotter/longer?
I think I understand the basic science of the approach. There are, practically speaking, three mechanisms for heat transfer. Radiation, conduction, and convection.
Scientifically, to a first approximation, all heat transfer in the universe is via radiation. It is the only form of heat transfer that can occur across a vacuum.
However, metal foils (or in this case a metalloid foil of aluminum) provide effective radiant barriers. Metal foil based radiant barriers are what made Eagle so shiny.
The foil over the bird makes heat transfer inside the oven less efficient by eliminating most of the radiant heat transfer.
However, where the foil touches the skin, it can serve as a conductor and crisp the skin relatively quickly. But that doesn't go bone deep. It is analogous to searing a steak, it helps keep the moisture in.
So that means convection does all the heavy lifting. In the beginning it is only via hot air. But as the bird heats, some of the moisture turns to steam. The steam cools as it rises when it hits meat at lower temperatures. The foil somewhat contains the steam...so a lot of the moisture does not evaporate and the effective cooking temperature is much lower than 450F.
In particular the convection cycle uses the thermal mass of the pan at the bottom. Juices flow down into it, evaporate and rise until cooled by uncooked meat above. Some of the uncooked meat liquifies and flows down along with the condensed steam.
---
But anyway, while I haven't cooked a hundred turkeys this way, I have cooked several dozen due to a period where I was eating low carb and cooking a small turkey about once a week for meat. It's worked for me a few dozen times less the few times before I used the foil method. Last Thursday's bird is among the successes.
I don't have an ideological dog in the method. The recipe produces great results with minimal additional effort (using foil, turning the oven dial a little further, and removing the foil).
I use the method because it is idiot proof. Alas as HN shows, it is not genius proof. Then again nothing is.
Cooking is an empirical endeavor.
Lower temperatures tend to dry meats out, e.g. jerked meats (all things kept constant (a sous vide gives different results)).
Lbs hrs
7-9 2.25-2.5
10-13 2.75-3
14-17 3-3.25
18-21 3.25-3.5
22-24 3.5-3.75I understand this comment is not necessarily helpful to OP, but I would just suggest that given the stress and energy of cooking turkey that people consider creating new traditions.
My tricks: spatchcock, aluminum foil on the breast, temp probe, and pulling it before it reaches target temp. Most people are overcooking their turkey (typically the breast) so that the thighs are fully done. Spatchcock fixes the surface area to volume ratio, the foil addresses the differential cooking of breast and thigh, and the temp probe ensures you're not under or overcooking.
I've never brined a turkey, but my guess is that's the last step to perfection.
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/brined-herb...
Brining doesn't add moisture. Dry brining actually removes moisture. Wet brining merely deposits salt and flavors in the surface of the meat via osmosis.
Salt also helps the protein structure break down, which makes the meat more tender, but for a bird as large as a turkey, it's really not penetrating that far, especially for the short time periods people are brining their turkeys.
In short, brining is only for flavor.
Moisture in the bird is a function of not losing what moisture is there already. There are two things you have to do: don't overcook the bird, and let the bird rest after cooking.
That's it. It's not hard. Get a digital probe thermometer. They are cheap, probably less than the cost of the turkey itself, and easy to use. You set it up to alarm when the internal temperature hits 165F and you immediately remove the bird and let it set for half an hour. You have to actively go out of your way to screw it up.
Everything else is dressing.
For preparation, put it on a chicken roasting pan, and "painted" it with melted butter. Sprinkled on some salt, pepper, fresh sage that grows in our yard, rosemary, and some garlic powder. I stuffed lemons and onion pieces in the middle.
I used an always-in thermometer in the thigh. Baked it at 325°F with the foil on until the thigh hit 135°F — about 3 hours for our 13-pound bird — then removed foil, drizzled a bit of an olive oil/garlic powder/salt mix over the top, and then let it continue to bake until the thigh hit 165°F. At that point the breast was 175°F.
Took it out and let it set for about 45 minutes before carving. I think that's the important part. Juices thicken and settle in the meat instead of running everywhere.
I think the two key things was constant temperature monitor (over-cooking means dry) and letting it set (early-cutting loses juices).
Sous vide machines are cheap. I've had mine for more than a decade now and use it all the time for the flexibility and ease of getting pretty great results.
If you don't want to buy a dedicated device, you can get buy with a big pot of water on a burner.
If you are a DIY kind of person, you can make one for less than $50.
Daughter said the white meat was the best she had ever had. (She might be biased though.)
And that doesn't even start to get into the other benefits, like having a large window of time where the meat is ready. Someone running late? Got a late start on the potatoes? No problem, just leave it in the vessel.
I personally thing spatchcocking the turkey is the way to go. The cavity is your enemy for an evenly cooked bird. With that big cavity you have trapped cold air on the inside and hot air on the inside making it hard to get the inside and outside cooked at the same time. Stuffing the cavity only makes that worse.
By spatchcock you eliminate the air pocket - it cooks more evenly and in about half the time.
- Buy parts, just the dark meat.
- Sous vide - salt, pepper, garlic, thyme, rosemary, 155C for 24hr. (breast would be 145 for fewer hours)
- Make a roux, add bag juices and a bit of acid (dijon and sherry vinegar) -> gravy (1:1 butter:flour, 1:10 roux : bag juices)
- Broil the thighs on high -> crispy on the outside, perfectly cooked on the inside.
You can leave the last step for another day and put the bag (sans juices) straight in the fridge. Then perfect turkey becomes an easy weeknight meal.
(It all depends on how the turkey is prepared and cooked. Don't do something silly like cook it quickly at 500 degrees. My dad's aunt used to do that and the turkey was very dry as a result.)
To make a moist turkey, buy a brined or kosher turkey at the grocery store. (The turkey is shipped in salt water.) 2-3 days before you cook it, rub it with salt and spices and let it sit in the refrigerator. Before you cook it, rub it with butter and spices. Stuff with onions and oranges. If you use an oven, cover the roasting pan to hold in the moisture. Cook it at 325 for a few hours.
I've also made a small turkey in a croc pot. It was extremely moist and didn't need gravy at all.
The recipe that I followed this year was: https://www.yummly.com/recipe/Dry-Brined-Roast-Turkey-with-G.... In addition to that: I bought a brined turkey, I stuffed with 2 chopped onions and 3 clementines, and I tightly covered the roasting pan with foil.
I bought it a day before eating it. It spent that day sitting on a rack covered in the fridge, starting with a good amount of kosher salt on the up side. After about 12 hours of that I flipped it, salted the new up side, and it went back into the fridge.
When it was time to cook it, a thermometer went into the center of the steak, and the steak went into a 200 ℉ oven until the thermometer read 120 ℉ (it took somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes).
When it came out of the oven it rested while I heated a frying pan to the highest my stove can get it to (somewhere in the 500-550 ℉ range). The steak then went into the pan for 45 seconds, got flipped, and spent another 45 seconds there, then to my plate.
After coming out of the oven it went into a frying pan that was as hot as my stove could get it (about 500 ℉) for 45 seconds, got flipped, spent 45 seconds on the other side, and then onto my plate.
That method gives me perfect steaks evenly cooked throughout every time. The only downside was I couldn't pair the steak with something else that also needed the oven unless that too only needed 200 ℉. The main casualty was baked frozen french fries which want 425 ℉. But recently my toaster died and I replaced it with a small toaster oven, and that can do fries so steak and fries are back on the menu.
(That being said, I really enjoyed cooking my turkey. It's a lot of fun if you like that kind of thing, but it's significantly more work, and more challenging, than just throwing steaks on the grill!)
When I stopped eating meat in 1990, people saw it as a burden on them. Over the years, more joined the bandwagon, not that I did anything that people haven't been doing for centuries. Now if anyone seems to need to explain, it seems the omnivores, though all families are unique.
tl;dw - dry turkey is to be expected and it doesn't need to be fixed, that's why you have gravy et al.
BBQ thermometers can take nearly all the guesswork out as you can get continuous temperature measurements. Use them no matter your target temp or technique.
- I used 3-4 sticks of butter inside the cavity, under the skin, on the skin
- I stuffed the cavity was apples, onions, anything with moisture
- I basted every 30-45 minutes
- I tented the turkey after the skin was crisp enough
- I cooked low and slow at 350 F over a long period of time
- I avoided overcooking, using a meat thermometer took it out ASAP around 160-165
- brined in a mix of salt, sugar and herbs for around 36 hours
- injected a butter mix under the skin (this one was my partner's idea so I'm not sure how if affected the outcome, but I suppose it couldn't hurt)
- fried the turkey in peanut oil
It came out really, really well. Process improvement for next year is to remember it took a bit longer than expected for the oil to heat up so it threw off timing with all the side dishes, so get the oil heated before you need it. I'd also be curious if buying an organic bird changes the taste.
The turkey was always dry during my Thanksgivings growing up, so when I hosted my own Thanksgiving dinner, I was determined to get it right. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Did pseudo "dry brine" by salting it lightly 48h before it's molten bath. Came out juicy and, more importantly for the skin lovers, crackly.
16lb bird, brined. Followed the "in the fridge for 1 day per 4 pounds" rule of thumb. Loosened (carefully, without puncturing) the skin between the breast and smeared in-between with 2 sticks of herb butter. Stuffed it with 2 quartered lemons, 2 quartered onions, and a tied-up bundle of savory herbs (sage, thyme, rosemary) Put a couple pats of butter on the top as well, and started it off with 30 minutes at 400. Then reduced the heat to 325 for the remaining 3-3.5 hours. Tucked the wings under the bird on the roasting rack, tied the legs. Baste on the hour, when it's the right color, cover with foil.
Simple and fast.
https://www.seriouseats.com/butterfiled-roast-turkey-with-gr...
I've settled into a citrus-brined turkey, roasted in a ceramic grill with hardwood lump and a piece of orange wood. This year it took 4.5 hours at between 220-300 F (after stuffing with more citrus, encasing in citrus butter, basting twice with citrus butter).
Besides an 18 hour brine soak (followed by water and then bourbon rinse), the key is to closely monitor temperature. Took it out when inner thigh was 173F. After taking off the grill, the breast meat reached 161F.
Guests said it is the best turkey they've ever had.
Some observations over the years:
1. Keep the humidity high in the oven. Add liquid to the roasting pan. I also added a tray of water to the BBQ when I used a rotisserie this year
2. Don't stuff the bird, or if you do, only use aromatics like orange/onion/bay leaf, and do it loosely
3. Add a fat to the skin
4. Brine your bird for 24 hours, dry it completely
5. Don't go directly from fridge to oven. Add some time outside of the fridge to come up in temperature
I told my wife I'm done with turkeys, and last year made a chicken, which was more enjoyable to cook and to eat. This year we did a duck, and it was even better.
Local retailers were profiteering hard on Turkey, so I got a large chicken for like 1/3 of the price per pound.
And no, not dry.
It is common though because most people aren't roasting turkeys that often, are afraid of poisoning their guests so they err on the side of caution. Also some people are just bad cooks but people are nice on Thanksgiving and will never actually tell them.
Unfortunately I was not the turkey chef this year. Which meant decent dark meat but bone dry white meat.
Because they are hung to age after being harvested, heritage turkeys only need about 90 minutes in the oven.
If you break down the bird before you cook it, you also get the carcass for stock ahead of time. That makes the stuffing and the gravy much easier logistically.
#1 -- Deep Fry. Absolute best turkey ever. Very Dangerous but danger imparts flavor ;)
#2 -- Spatchcock -- Creates a good golden bird, in 1/2 the time.
New Method saw a couple of years ago but is pretty effective
#3 -- Debone -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peeRWHI7FpY
I followed this recipe: https://oven.anovaculinary.com/recipe/XfuP37eSjxZvmNh23jBJ
The act of adding steam to the cooking process and only using a 11 lb bird (with some flavor injection and dry brining) prevents drying.
It’s juicy and perfect.
I deep fried them.
It also cooks in a fraction of the time, and leaves the oven open to prepare other dishes.
My wife cooked it in a plastic bag. Also, I think it had never been frozen.
In the UK obviously thanksgiving, but Turkey at Xmas is normal (and loads of the time it's dry and tasteless) - most other options are better.
Turkeys are frozen and terrible. So I made pork belly instead, and it was glorious.
In contrast, a “never frozen” turkey can only be shipped in an extremely narrow range of temperatures, and rough handling can cause deep damage to both the meat and bones.
Reminder: you can happily comment and weigh in, but you don't have to upvote it
Turkey done quickly and tasty.