Thanksgiving Turkey Roasting and Grilling Discuss Thanksgiving Turkey in the Brick Oven Cooking forums; Just a PS to my last post - it really should be a fresh bird (they cook faster than ones ...

[sarah h]

Just a PS to my last post - it really should be a fresh bird (they cook faster than ones previously frozen too) for brining but if using frozen, make sure it's fully thawed before brining.

[Acoma]

Sarah, I am doing your brine recipe right now. I will actually smoke this turkey as experiment as well. I bought two, the other being traditional way (but then, what is traditional anymore). Will let you know later this week.

[sarah h]

So it's headed for the oven soon, if it isn't there already - hope it turns out well.
Happy Thanksgiving!

[dmun]

Turkey Report

Here's how the turkey went today. Yesterday I built a fire after lunch, a couple of hours before I would normally have done so for pizza. I brought the oven up to white, slowly over the course of the afternoon, and had pizza for dinner at 6. After dinner, I shoveled out the oven, and put the door on, which for the moment is a piece of plywood.

At 6 on Thansgiving morning, I built a fire, and kept it going all morning, eventually coming to white again, and dying down to embers at 11. I shoveled the oven out again, put the door on, and went to prepare the turkey.

I used a thoroughly thawed frozen turkey, house brand. I stuffed it with seasoned bread stuffing, and put it in the oven at noon. The oven thermometer read about 375 soon after I put it in with the turkey, and with the door closed it ramped up to about 475 within half an hour with the door back on. I used a remote thermometer, inserted lengthwise in the breast. In an hour or so it was pretty well browned, and I put a tent of foil on top to retard further browning. It took about three and a half hours for the thermometer to reach 161. I brought the turkey in and it was, if anything, a little bit too done. While it was sitting waiting for me to make gravy, the built in thermometer popped up, always a bad sign. (Those things must be calibrated by supermarket liability lawyers.)

In any event, a fine time was had by all. If nothing else it's nice to have a thanksgiving without a smelly house and a dirty oven.

[dalucca2003]

Sorry if this is so late, but was on vacation since Thanksgiving and just wanted to post my experience with cooking a turkey in the oven. I woke up around 5:00 a.m. Thanksgiving Day and fired up the oven and got the temperature up to about 650 (I think next time I will increase the temperarure to about 750 or so). I then partially shut the door and l went inside to prepare the bird as I waited for the fire to die down.

I purchased a fresh 11 lb. bird and elected not to stuff the turkey. Cleaned it well and then cut up onions, celery, and carrots and lined the bottom of my roasting pan. Next, I rubbed the turkey with butter and then some good olive oil. I then minced up some herbs (parsley, garlic, thyme, sage, rosemary) and then rubbed the bird inside and out.

Once the fire was completely gone, I fully shut the door and let the temperature stabilize to around 550 - 500 degrees. Once the oven was ready, I pushed all the coals towards the back, covered the turkey with tin foil and placed it in the oven. In the meantime, my mother came over with some foccacia and bread and we started also baking it alongside the turkey.

This was my first time baking bread, and I must say it came out very well. I can't wait to trying some more bread here in the next month or so. As for the turkey, I checked the temperature after a couple of hours and I got a reading of around 140 degrees. Since the bird was covered in tin foil, it had hardly browned, but you could tell it was very moist. Once the bird hit 150 degrees, I took the tin foil off and within 20 minutes or less the turkey started browning very nicely. I finally took him out of the oven around 12:15once the guage was between 160 - 165 degrees.

My wife had also prepared a turkey in the indoor oven and that was the one we took to her family for what I called Thanksgiving Lunch around 1:00. The bird I had done in the WFO I took to my mother's house for Thanksgiving Dinner at about 6:00 p.m. and I must say the turkey was still moist and very flavorful. Most everyone had two to three helpings. Even my wife agreed we will start cooking out turkey exclusively in the WFO from now on.

[DrakeRemoray]

Great report! You said you would fire the oven to 750 next time...it sounded like it turned out great, why would you increase the heat? Just wondering.

Drake
(who is not from Lucca, but has now been to Lucca)

[dalucca2003]

Thanks Drake.....hopefully you enjoyed Lucca. It truly is a beautiful city. In regards to bringing the temperature up to 700 -750 degrees, my thought is that way I ensure I will ensure the oven temperature does not drop to soon. I might be totally off, but my plan was to get the oven nice and hot and then let it stablize to around 500 degrees. I guess I am afraid if I don't let the oven get hot enough, I might lose the heat and my temperature would drop to quickly.

You are right though, It seemed I was okay with oven firing up to 650 degrees. I guess I am being a little paranoid as it was my first bird in the oven and my fear is undercooking the bird.