ottawa foodies

I'll start. Brined or not, I've lately been cooking turkeys breast side down for the first half of the cooking process. It's supposed to allow the juices to drain into, rather than out of, the breast meat. Seems to work for me, but it's definitely a two person, clothing ruining proposition to try to invert a twenty pound turkey part way through cooking.

Also have been sealing the skin with duck fat, which seems to promote a nicely crisped skin.

I can't find my previous post on this but here goes...I'm a big proponent of oven bags. I generally hate shortcuts and gimmicks, so hear me out.

The turkey cooks quicker, white meat is perfectly moist, dark meat is fall off the bone, skin is crispy, and every last drop of drippings are reserved. Glorious.

The only drawback I see is that the underside of the turkey (which has limited although delicious meat in the sot-l'y-laisse and tail) poaches in the collected drippings somewhat, and the underside skin doesn't crisp perfectly. Small price to pay in my view.

Butterfly it! Quick cooking, super crisp skin, white and dark meat cook perfectly without drying out. Highly recommended.

That or deep-frying. So easy and delicious.

Brined and smoked worked pretty good for me. The downside is the turkey aroma is missing from the house and the skin is not crispy. Maybe the Stuart Maclean gravy on the lightbulb trick is required.

Brined for sure but personally I do not like smoked - but I still cook mine on the egg without smoking

This one has never faild me. Doing it again this year over charcoal. The key is temperature probe to get it right at 170 in the breast. No brining needed. The bird does get a little dark so covering with foil half way through helps. The draw backs are stuffing is usually the frozen butterball brand in the oven and the turkey is on the small side. I can get a 12 to 14lb bird with a bit of tweaking to the recipe any bigger and the BBQ will not accomodate.
www.bbqu.net

For me ?

Brine and Butterfly.

Turkey gravy made with drippings.