Ditto. The first year I made it my MIL was shocked…you’re doing what to it?
I had no leftovers that year.
Come to Redondo Beach! We’d LOVE to have you join us!!!
Thanks, Shayna! I’d love to, but I have an appointment for the 60k service on the Prius the following Friday morning.
When are you guys coming up here?
OH NO! That can’t be changed! :eek:
:sniff sniff: Now we know where we rank. 
When are we going to be invited? 
I butterfly the turkey, and take out all the bones except the drumsticks and wings. Brown it on both sides, then arrange it on top of the stuffing and roast. Cooks in about a hour and a half.
I usually debone it and make the stock the day before. Stuffing is super simple -[ul][]six cups of fresh breadcrumbs[]one or two teaspoons of sage []one or two eggs[]2-3 chopped ribs of celery[]two or three chopped onions[]the bits of meat off the bonesa pound of loose pork sausage[/ul]Brown the onions, sausage, meat and celery together in a couple tablespoons of butter until they are soft. Add the breadcrumbs and beaten eggs, sage, and salt and pepper to taste.
I’ve always used the oven bag method,with stuffing…I refuse to change that part. But I’d like to try the flipping method, or the butterflied method…I’ve done that for chicken, and it was nothing short of the best chicken I’ve ever made…
I think he’s way off the mark with this. A stuffed bird does not mean a dry end product. I’ve been roasting turkeys for 40 years, and the main culprit in dry turkey is not using a thermometer. Likewise, brining is overrated, IMO, and ruins the drippings.
I have to invite you? What are you, a vampire? 
Of course you can come up anytime. Just give me a heads-up so I can make it look like I’m not a complete slob! My inflata-bed isn’t as nice as yours, but I’m told it’s comfortable.
Back to turkeys: My mom knew I roasted turkeys in a bag, and she liked them. So one year she decided to try it herself. Only somehow she got the bird in the bag upside-down. (Mom was a very good cook. It’s just that this one time she had a brainfart.) Of course the breast wasn’t at all browned. But I’ve never had turkey breast so juicy!
My whole family has gotten into the habit of brining it. It works out well.
Do we have a Thanksgiving/Holiday recipe thread this year? I absolutely love those but I can’t seem to find it.
Ruins the drippings? I’ve got to have gravy made from the drippings.
I, too, have had luck with brining using Alton Brown’s recipe, but this year I’m going with a dry brine, using America’s Test Kitchen (registration required) recipe as a template. When I first brined (and stuffed the cavity with citrus aromatics), it was new to the family. Now that everyone is using my (purloined) methods, I have to change things up.
I guess you missed where he went back and stuffed a turkey (or it might have been a chicken). He acknowledged that despite his earlier statement, people were going to do it, and that they should do it “correctly”.
He also went back on his initial “no oil in the pasta water” statement.
As mentioned earlier, the amount of salt that ends up in the drippings can make it unusable. I’ll just stick to my method: no bags, no brine, no deep frying (a huge mess for little benefit), no inverted birds, no shoe polish or other weird stuff. I get raves on my stuffing and gravy, and the bird is always moist.
I haven’t had any problems with using brined turkey drippings for gravy. It really isn’t all that salty. You just don’t add any more salt to the gravy or to the giblet stock you make it with. I use a pretty simple honey brine, without a lot of aromatics. I think it’s aromatics that throw off the flavor of the drippings.
I tried Alton’s brine once and wasn’t impressed. His roasting method (starting out hot then dropping the temp) works pretty well, though
I have two methods that I use mainly because I also have a rib roast in the oven that I use to make my gravy. I leave one turkey whole and cut a second one up into its components. Throw both of them into a soy sauce / bourbon marinade and let soak for a couple of days. The whole turkey gets deep fried while the pieces get BBQed over a red oak fire.
I cook so much because as the only college kid who could cook I’d have all of the other refugees who couldn’t or didn’t want to go home over for a kegger. Now I do the same thing for people with jobs who don’t want to cook or want to avoid their families but I do it on Friday so people who have a traditional Thanksgiving can make it as well.
Here’s another vote for Alton’s version of the bird.
Best
Turkey
Ever.
edit: and Diogenes is right. If you’re not gonna use his brine and aromatics, at least use his roasting method. I always though Norman Rockwell’s golden turkey was a complete fiction until we tired that method.
I did a citrus brine last year and did the “cook upside down” trick already mentioned. I also stuff the cavity with havlved apples and oranges. It turned out amazing, tender and juicy!
This year, my mother is doing the bird so back to dry bird. sigh I love her but the woman just cannot cook.
MeanJoe
That’s strange, because the guests loved the gravy produced from our brined turkey last year. I’ll have to double-check the method I used for brining; mine might have been a lower-salt version than many people use.
Then it’s not stuffing, it’s dressing…
Stuffed and roasted here. Tented with foil until the end for browning.
We’re not doing a full bird for Thanksgiving this year, but we are for Christmas. I will try the upside down roasting method. No brining though - the gravy, man, the gravy!
I don’t know yet. Past years I’ve done only the bone-in breast and have used the beer can method with aromatics in the pan. This year, I have a whole turkey and I don’t know if the beer can method is going to work.
I’m making sausage and onion dressing on the side.