Please read the thread! The OP decided that discretion was the better part of valor & has decided to brine the turkey & cook it using a method less likely to require calls to 911…
Not that a deep fried turkey can’t be delicious; it’s just Not For Beginners. A few years ago, a local bar did a Communal Turkey Fry in the parking lot. They had the serious equipment; also, once heated up, oil can cook several turkeys in a row. So the patrons brought their turkeys & waited while The Experienced did the cooking. Note: The patrons may have been drinking but the cooks were not. This is key…
I think you’re good time-wise. Put Mr. Gobbles in the brine tonight, take him out tomorrow night and let him air dry, pop him in the oven Thursday morning.
Go to lowes or hd or Walmart and buy a Turkey frying setup. They are pretty cheap.
Buy a Turkey injector or your marinade.
Inject the Turkey with a mixture of butter, teriyaki, pepper, Cajun spices, and oth her things you like. Put a little bit every 2 Inches
Use peanut oil. Buy a big I’ve gallon thing of it, but only I’ll your fryer halfway,
Preaheat the oil to 375.
Turn flame off.
Use oven mitts and carefully take hot oil pot off of burner and place on the ground several feet away.
The turkey should be hung with he large end facing up. You should lower it into the oil from a height and a distance. I use coat hanger wire and a broomstick o I am several feet away. Hot oil sticks to you like napalm.
Lower the turkey in very slowly
Clean up oil on side of fryer with paper towels.
Add more oil if needed so turkey is completely immersed.
Replace on burner. Start timing 3 minutes per pound. Target tmp for oil is 375.
Monitor continuously.
When done you should fry other things. Make balls of mashed potatoes or stuffing or both, dip them in egg wash, and roll them in crushed potato chips then fry them for a few minutes.
You should make gravy separately.
Filter the oil though a paper towel, refrigerate and save.
We used a light chain with a hook on the end made for turkeys.
It’s incredibly dangerous to drop a frozen turkey into oil; you can get some really nasty spattering, and if much oil hits the flame, you can be in real trouble. If your turkey is just insufficiently thawed, it will take three or four times as much time cooking and will be overcooked on the outside and barely done inside. We ruined one one year by not thawing thoroughly.
Even though I over cooked it (the drumstick bottoms were black), it was still the moistest turkey I ever made without a bag. This is only because I once made a turkey in a bag that fell right off the bone. It wasn’t so much roasted turkey as it was turkey stew.
This year’s turkey was tender and juicy and tasty AND overcooked. I can’t wait for next year when I don’t overcook it!
For what it’s worth, we did two turkies this year. One was cooked in the oven and one was deep fried. The deep fried one was gone before the oven one was even a third eaten.
Yes, it’s a lot of trouble. But a good deep fried turkey is tasty.
Deep frying a turkey is tasty, but I don’t have the technology to filter and store the oil for the next time, so I do it rarely. Flavor brined and smoked is ideal, but you have to start around two days before you need it cooked, so that’s a problem for a spur of the moment turkey dinner.
The brined turkey is withstanding the test of time. First, it was eaten up on Thanksgiving day. Usually the turkey just sits as the ham gets devoured. This year half the turkey was gone the first day. And it has withstood repeated reheatings. Even though I overcooked the bird, it is still so tender that I just finished pulled the last leg off the carcass with my hand.
I’m afeared they’ll not be enough turkey for our traditional middle-of-next-week turkey curry salad.
