I’ve got a 25 pound turkey. I bought it on Sunday, but it’s still frozen. What’s the best way to defrost it ? If cold water, please see question 1a.
1a. If I let the bird sit in cold water, do I need to do it overnight, or can I give it a bath today and store it in the fridge until tomorrow morning ?
I need to bring this turkey to my dad’s house to cook it. He lives over two hours away. I don’t have a cooler that big, so what’s the best way to keep the bird safe in my trunk ?
That site says that for your size turkey, you’d need 5 days to defrost it in the refrigerator, or 12 hours using the “cold water” method. With the “cold water” method, you’d need to change the water every half hour as well.
I’m not prepared to believe that 12 hours in cold water is safe.
If it’s 25 pounds and still frozen, you’ll have to let it sit in the sink overnight immersed in water. Depending on how deep your sink is, you may have to put a weight on top of the turkey to keep it submerged.
Yes, ideally you should change the water, blah-blah-blah, but frankly, overnight is the only way you’re going to get it defrosted.
Re: the car trip, if it’s still a bit frozen then it’s OK in the trunk as is (I assume you live somewhere that’s cold in November.) If it’s completely defrosted then I’d surround it with ice.
Remember, even if the outer part of the turket feels defrosted, the inside may still be ice. So give it plenty of time to defrost.
I would ignore the FDA’s advice on this one. You’re planning to cook this turkey after defrosting it. Cooking will kill any bacteria. There are only two dangers: that the bird will spoil and taste bad, and that it will be infected with botulism (cooking kills the Clostridium botulinum bacteria, but doesn’t destroy the toxin). Both are so unlikely that they’re not worth worrying about.
Meats lose juices when they defrost, and the faster they defrost the more they lose. In your case, you have no choice. A turkey that’s a little dry is better than no turkey at all on Thanksgiving.
You don’t need to change the water. Make sure you leave the turkey in the package in which it comes (which hopefully has no holes in it). I use this method every year and it works just fine. Going on 35 years of making turkey dinners and no e-coli yet. Make sure that your sink stopper actually keeps the water from escaping if you’re leaving it in overnight.
If you live in a place that’s relatively cold right now, put your turkey in a large cooler, put some cold water in it to cover it, and keep it in the garage. Put something heavy on it so to avoid critter-age.
Keep it in the same cooler when travelling to dad’s.
You may want to try brining it in water in the fridge. This assumes that you have already started to thaw it somewhat. Brining means soaking in water, sugar and salt. This helps the meat stay moist and in my experience thaws faster than just sitting in the fridge.
There’s pretty much no way you’ll make the FDA happy on the 2 hour car trip, even with a cooler.
If food safety is your highest priority, you might consider having him buy a fresh turkey locally, and you cook up this big turkey when you get home.
The fastest way to safely defrost is cold running water. (HOT running water would be faster, but is either safe not as practical for unattended thawing. I’m not going to explain the thermodynamics of it - people will insist their experience contradicts it. If you believe seeing is believing, Alton Brown once did a side by side comparison using ice ducks: cold standing water, hot standing water, cold running water, refrigerator, or an oven set to 200 F. The cold running water beat even the oven.
Do a search for the Alton Brown Good Eats episode “What’s up Duck”. It’s widely available on the filesharing services> Or maybe you have a friend who tapes the shows, or simply saw that ep (I bet they’ve been re-running it a lot lately. He’s on the food channel at least 7-10 times a week) For those who use filesharing programs, it’s pretty easy to download, with all the usual caveats.
As for transport, a cooler or ice-filled pot is fine. A frozen turkey must be sold at 0 F (-18C) or below per USDA standards. Even when it first thaws, it’s at about 24 F, because raw turkey freezes at a lower temperature than water. In other words, a freshly thawed frozen turkey is actually still colder than some people’s freezers, and if you check it with a digital thermometer, you’ll find that won’t reach standard refrigerator temperature (38-40 F) for more than a day after its thawed by physical inspection.
Recap: a turkey thaws at 24 F (or so), ice melts at 32 F, and a refrigerator is 38-40 F,
Pack the still-wrapped bird in your largest pot with ice all around, add some water (if desired) for thermal contact, or to raise the freezer ice to 32 F if the turkey’s not fully thawed yet,. The then wrap the pot with blankets. The water+ice will be 32 F, which will actually warm your turkey above its freezing point of 24 F, while still staying cooler than your nice ‘safe’ 40 F refrigerator until the last of the ice melts, and probably for a good while after.
Sorry to bump this up, but I have another question.
I put my turkey in the bathtub and covered it with cold water. I drained the water and refilled it every hour, three times. I felt kind of soft, so after that I put it back in the fridge. The top of the turkey popped out of the water a few times.
In my opinion, as long as the bathtub was VERY clean, the turkey is safe! But I hope it’s thawed inside. If you think it’s thawed, you can remove the plastic wrapping and see if you can remove the giblet package without encountering any ice. Actually you may want to remove it anyhow, it may help the turkey reach a more consistent temperature.