Alton Brown's Turkey Brine
- 1 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1 gallon vegetable stock
- 1 tbsp black peppercorns
- 1 1/2 tsp allspice berries
- 1 1/2 tsp chopped candied ginger
- 1 gallon water, heavily iced
- 1 5 gallon bucket (like a paint bucket but very clean)
- 1 14 to 16 lb frozen young turkey
- Directions 2 to 3 days before roasting: Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F. Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, and candied ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat.
- Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil.
- Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.
- The night before you'd like to eat: Combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket.
- Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine.
- If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once halfway through brining.
- Preheat the oven to 500F.
- Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water.
- Discard the brine.
- Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels.
- Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil.
- Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500F for 30 minutes.
- Note that the skin will brown during this part.
- If it appears that it is browning too fast or is brown enough, loosely cover those parts with foil for the remander of the cooking time.
- Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350F.
- Loosely cover the legs and breast with foil if you haven't already.
- Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161F.
- A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting.
- Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.
kosher salt, light brown sugar, vegetable stock, black peppercorns, berries, candied ginger, gallon water, gallon bucket, frozen young turkey
Taken from cookpad.com/us/recipes/349975-alton-browns-turkey-brine (may not work)