Well, my sister in law decided to have her Christmas dinner early this year to try and make everything a little easier for those who had so many places to go on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve. With the family growing and the nieces and nephews expanding their own families, and with the divorce rate being what it is these days I think it was very thoughtful of her to do that. Hubby does too, now that it's come and gone he appreciates that she did that. But Change is never easy for my husband.




Nothing new is ever a good idea, sometimes you just have to do what you do and once the initial shock wears off he will be glad it happened. This was one of those times, be is calmed and glad of the change now.

But the night before the Christmas dinner, he got himself all in a tizzy about it, He was drinking a little, and got in his mind that he just HAD to smoke a turkey to take to his sisters. No amount of talking would convince him that this froze solid ball of meat didn't possibly have time to thaw and brine over night in the 12 hours until her dinner.. So he takes this turkey out of the freezer, hell bent on making it happen for his sister. (sweet sentiment, his heart was in the right place i guess).. So he takes this turkey out of the freezer and he puts it in a huge pot that covered it with water and he put in on the stove over night on the lowest heat setting, and sure as shooting in the morning that bird was thawed, and his plan to smoke a bird for his sister might have worked, had he not brined it, and not had a hang over that left him sleeping until 45 minutes before he had to be at his sisters house. So no birdie for sisters dinner, but he didn't even remember that there was supposed to be a bird smoking happening so, its all good I suppose.

This did however leave us with a turkey to brine and smoke. We aren't seasoned vets at smoking meat, but we have done it enough times to have an idea of how the process works, and so I set out to make a brine for it..

a brine NEEDS 4 things in my opinion

an acid like vinegar, beer, wine, etc
salt plenty of salt
oil
and some sort of sweet element (brown sugar, honey, fruit juice etc)

Everything else is extra and season to your liking

I was already aggravated about this darned turkey I had tried my best to talk him out of, so I didn't care, and maybe eve a little bit hoped it turned out shitty cuz he was an asshole.. (I still love him tho)

So, here is what went into our turkey brine

5 cans of Budweiser lime-a-Rita
1/4 to 1/3 cup salt That seems like a lot but a lot is needed for the brine and you rinse it before cooking it so it was not too salty)
4 sliced and squeezed oranges rinds and all ( i quartered the oranges, squeezed the juice into the brine and then dropped in the pulpy rinds)
3 tbsp dill weed
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cup honey
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
4 tbsp onion salt
4 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp celery salt
1/3 cup mustard seeds
2 tbsp bacon flavoring powder
1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup vegetable oil (if Id had it I would have used olive oil but I was out)

I put the turkey in with all these other ingredients, and then filled it the rest of the way with water until turkey was completely covered.

I took out the giblet sack, but didn't realize until it was done that I had left the neck in it. But this is asshole turkey I'm sure I cared.

This thawed turkey soaked in the brine in my fridge from about 4pm on Saturday, until about 6 pm on Monday (roughly 3 days) in a pot as big around as a small bicycle tire and as tall as my 8 month old grand baby, maybe not quit as tall but darned near it.. We lucked up and had this ginormous stock pot to use but if you don't you can use a cooler but you will need to keep it iced cuz its important to keep the meat cold while in the brine.

when we were ready to put it in the smoker i removed the turkey from the pot and put it into the sink in a colander and rinsed with cold water inside and out very well

I patted it dry, stuffed 2 oranges that i cut into quarters into the cavity, and placed it in a large cast iron pot, folded the wings behind the back, rubbed the outter skin with a mix of honey, salt, garlic, black pepper, and butter, and covered loosely with tin foil, I did not seal it, I just kinda lay the tinfoil over the turkey and cast iron pot and folded to shape but did not seal to allow the smoke flavor to get it. If you do not leave the tin foil loose around the turkey you might as well cook it in the oven, the whole point of smoking is to allow the smoke to get to the turkey.. the reason for covering with tin foil is to somewhat trap some of the steam and moisture that develops during the cooking process to become trapped and keep the smoked turkey from drying out.

I cannot tell you bout the smoking process because the brineing and seasoning stage is my area of expertise and then hubby takes over from there. But I will get with him about the smoking process and i will post about it later. When I do that , i will link it to this post so you can check it out.. It's stupid o'clock in the morning right now and even I should be in bed instead of doing this, so its a no go tonight ya'll..

Anyway, long story short this was one of the best turkey's we ever made and I hope he takes his sister some of it since it meant so much to him to try to make a 40 hour bird in 12 hours. But he gave it the old college try didn't he? Well you don't know but trust me he did...

This is the first time I have done no more than brine on a turkey.  I normally brine over night and then inject a few hours before smoking, but no injecting this time, just the weird brine and the weird brine worked very well, I am both happy and sad to say the smoked turkey was dy-no-mite. I don;t know if it was the brine or the smoke that did it good, or maybe we just make great team.. But OMG YUMMM!!!!


**note**

I think this brine would world just as well on chicken or pork, I have no regrets..

Pictures to come tomorrow when phone is charged...