This turkey recipe spawned from Alton Brown’s recipe with a modification here and there. The brine for this recipe doesn’t follow Alton Brown’s exactly, and will be tinkered with in the future. What is written down now are just some notes I have written from the first time I tried brining a turkey. In the roasting phase, I always stuff the turkey with lemongrass for the aromatics.

Brining the Turkey

This is a very important step to make the turkey juicy.

• 1 gallon vegetable stock
• 1 gallon iced water
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• lemons
• orange
• mix of herbs

Heat the vegetable stock over the stove and add the salt, sugar, and herbs. Once everything is dissolved, turn off the heat and let the mixture cool completely. You can make this ahead of time and store in the fridge.

Place the turkey in a large pot or oven bag and carefully pour in the brine, ice water, and add the sliced lemons and orange. If the turkey is not completely enveloped in the brine, it’s important to have it breast side down and then attempt to turn the bird halfway through the brining. The turkey can sit in the brine from 8-16 hours.

Baking the Turkey

Stuff the turkey with lemongrass and coat the outside with canola oil. I always place my turkey breast side down in a turkey pan for the entirety of the baking. You could use the foil-tent method, but breast-side down is easier and essentially foolproof. The reason for doing this is that the white meat cooks faster than the dark meat and will dry out if it is directly exposed to the heat for the entire baking period.

The turkey will first bake at 500°F for 30 minutes, and then the oven will get turned down to 350°F for the rest of the cooking period. The initial 30 minutes at high heat is important for getting a nice color and crispy skin.

Remove the turkey from the oven the moment it hits 161°F. Cover it with foil and let it rest. The final temperature will rise to 165°F. The total baking time is always less than what it says on other sites. It could be because of that initial period at 500°F. Alton Brown says a 14-16 pound bird will take a total of 2-2.5 hours. I’ve found this to be pretty accurate, at around 8-9 minutes per pound. The last 20-pound bird we made took just 3 hours!