Turkey - to brine or not to brine?

[SierraMadre]

Is it nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of derision from my mother or risk a dry trurkey?

We are about to move back into our house after renovations and I have planned a truly poncetastic Christmas for six of us. The turkey is coming from a farmer who is the husband of one of my colleagues (how's that for poncetastic local?!) and will no doubt be a thing of free-range, slow frown beauty.

Do I need to brine such a specimen?

We have always had beef in the past, but I couldn't pass up the chance to have a full on Henry VII style feast this year.

Yes you can get your meat moist by just using sugar and salt.

shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/brining-basics-tips-not-194900795.html you can't just throw it in water there needs to be some sort of osmosis occuring in the saline solution.

Anyone ever brined a chicken? I'm not brave enough to do brining for the first time with the christmas turkey, thought I could do a trial run with a chicken...? :)

yes you can brine a chicken, saw Thomas Keller do it on a programme
baileysbarkery.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/thomas-kellers-roast-chicken/

chowhound.chow.com/topics/285231

or quite an interesting discussion on the link above

Thanks! :)
Am on my phone atm (MNing while I cook dinner!), will look at the links properly later :)

Right, I shall be brining a chicken then!

One last brining question.... (can you tell this is the first time I've done Christmas dinner?!) ... when you are working out how long to cook the turkey for, i.e. time/per lb, do you base it on pre-soaking or post-soaking weight? I assume it soaks up a fair bit of liquid?

Thanks again

I tried the Nigella brine recipe a couple of years ago. It was fab. This year I have only ordered a turkey crown, as nobody eats the legs. Will it still work or will the turkey fall apart??

Far too much faff. I just baste with loads of butter while its cooking.

I used a cooler box last year to brine my turkey and it was fine I just made sure that I disinfected the cooler box before and after, HTH.

jo We only have a crown and it works perfectly.

Is it worth brining a posh bird?
I can see it would make a lesser one more succulent...but at xmas I splash out on Kelly's Bronze...

Yes you can brine a posh bird. I don't think Nigella buys a Netto frozen special - unless it's all an act!

IntheZen I can't help on that as I don't really measure the time on cooking a chicken, I just check after 45 mins to and hour that the juices are clear, and if not 10/15 minutes or so after that etc..

One of the links will have the cooking weight info I'm sure.