Deep Frying a Turkey

I inject with a marinade pretty much of strained italian dressing, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I brine when I smoke a turkey.

I always inject my fried turkeys. I like a cajun butter type injection...I usually buy a jar along with an injector. Tony Chachari's is one brand...there are others and I haven't found a nasty one yet. If you rub the bird get under the skin - otherwise, it just boils off.

Oh yeah, make sure the sucker is really and truly defrosted!! I get it defrosted, inject, rub, and then put back in the fridge, uncovered, usually overnight, (I have a spare refrigerator) to allow the skin the dry out.

Good luck.

Check the packaging

If its frozen, it has about a 103% chance that it says "packaged in a solution of X%" where X is the amount of sodium in the water.

This is already sitting in a brine. To re-brine, is overkill

Good luck!!

Fresh turkeys are a nice option. No hassle with defrosting.

Also got real good results withe the Tony Chachere's Cajun Butter. The syringe & needle that came with the Cajun Butter is kinda wimpy but i had a big one that came with the turkey fryer that worked a lot better.

Turkey Frying Tips

Beyond the rub and injection, here are some of my best turkey frying tips that you won't find in the instruction book.

1) Know how much oil - You need to know how much oil to have hot and ready in the pot before you dunk the turkey. How much will cover your bird? The instruction book will tell you to put the turkey into the dry pot and fill with water until it covers the bird. Remove the bird and the remaining water is the amount of oil you'll need to start.

What the instructions don't tell you is that cool water and hot oil have different volumes. Cold oil will cover your bird. Hot oil will expand and could flow over your pot when you drop the bird in. I learned this the hard way on my very first fried turkey. Used the right amount of oil based on the intruction technique, but had a huge mess when I put a large bird into the pot with the hot, expanded oil. When you use the water trick, don't completely cover the bird. Leave yourself a couple inches or more from the top of the bird.


2) Oil will go everywhere - Tired of the oil stains in the driveway, we now start out turkey frys with a bag of kitty litter. The whole bag of kitty litter is dumped on the driveway in a circle with a 3 foot diameter. The fryer goes in the center. Oil that splatters goes on the kitty litter and is absorbed. When it is time to clean up, simply sweep up the kitty litter into the trash.

3) Turkey Frying is an outdoor sport - Every year some idiot decides to fry his turkey in his basement or in the garage. He usually is looking for a new place to live the next day... if he lives through the fire.

4) Give the pot a wash - You didn't hear this from me, but a car wash is a great way to get your pot clean again. Watch for splatter with the high pressure sprayer.

These are my turkey frying tips that aren't in the instruction book. A word of caution is that there is a fine line between undercooked bird and over cooked bird. Watch your oil temp and times according to the instruction book and you'll do fine. Keep a meat thermometer on hand to temp that thigh and breast when you think it is ready. Don't keep a probe in the meat while in the fryer: bad, bad idea.

Any other tips from the Brethren?

Spydermike72 said:

Ok, I am taking the plunge this year, I just bought my Turkey fryer, here is the question. Do I brine the bird or do I inject ? My wife actually thought we could brine it in a buttermilk mixture ?? Anybody know of such an animal ?? I am sure this subject has been beaten to death, if on of the mods could point me in the right direction I would be forever grateful!!

Thanks!!

Mike

Click to expand...

Mike I have always brined the turkey, just remember when you make holes in the turkey, which will do injecting it, you will have some escape during the frying process.
Myself, I dont care for the pockets of seasoning here and there as a result of the injecting process. To each his own, just remember to dry the turkeyafter the brine.
Fried turkey is awesome, I did it for years, but in my humble opinion, it cant even touch a good smoked turkey :wink:

definitly make sure u dont get too much oil in the pot. done that the last 2 years think id have learned my lesson. i inject mine with tony chichrowhateverhisnameis, cajun butter, turns out pretty good.

When we fry turkeys, Andy makes an injection. It is very spicy and stinks up the house for about a week. But....It gives the turkey wonderful flavor. It is only really spicy if you get the slice of turkey at an injection site.

If any one is interested just PM me or Andy (HoDeDo).

I'm doing 3 again this year and I always inject and brine (brine with salt brown sugar and pepper corns), Do a search and you will find tons of threads about this.

Post #6 in the Roadmap has all you need, I beleive

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7818

Sadly, this will be the first year of no frying. Not enough people. Only 6 this year, so we're just using the WSM.

I guess its safe to empty out the oil from last years cook.

<yikes!>

Todd has some good stuff in his post.

My dad proved that there's always one more thing that can be done wrong. We fried our birds 3 years ago (we've done it before and since, too). It was raining a bit, and he wanted to ensure the temp stayed right, so he put the thermo in the hole in the top of the pot lid. Well, that caused the pressure to build up enough that the oil boiled over, and we had a 10 foot flame for part of a second until I shut off the gas... Fortunately not under the deck!

cmcadams said:

Todd has some good stuff in his post.

My dad proved that there's always one more thing that can be done wrong. We fried our birds 3 years ago (we've done it before and since, too). It was raining a bit, and he wanted to ensure the temp stayed right, so he put the thermo in the hole in the top of the pot lid. Well, that caused the pressure to build up enough that the oil boiled over, and we had a 10 foot flame for part of a second until I shut off the gas... Fortunately not under the deck!

Click to expand...

You know turkey stories like yours usually make the evening news :lol:

Bossmanbbq said:

You know turkey stories like yours usually make the evening news :lol:

Click to expand...

This is why men should do the turkey frying... or is it why women should?

Bossmanbbq, you got a pic of that Mother of all Turkey Fryers?

Plowboy said:

This is why men should do the turkey frying... or is it why women should?

Bossmanbbq, you got a pic of that Mother of all Turkey Fryers?

Click to expand...

I got an apron for my uncle a couple years ago that said "Real Men Fry Turkeys". Sweet!

Another tip, along the lines of Plowboy's back off a couple inches in measuring how much oil, GO SLOW and WEAR GLOVES

I have these 500* rubber gloves that go nearly to my elbows.

Now when I say to go slow, "dropping the bird into the oil" is a figure of speech.

SLOWLY lower the bird into the oil. I've cooked a few 18-20# birds and it has taken up to 2 minutes to get the bird down in there. Every demonstration you see on the news of how "not" to do it, drops it in and backs up, for even with the correct amount of oil, there's no way it aint boiling over.

So with the gloves, I have a dense denim insulated jacket on, jeans, and work boots. I skip the normal sweat pants and sandals in favor of common sense safety.

Good luck!

willkat98 said:

Another tip, along the lines of Plowboy's back off a couple inches in measuring how much oil, GO SLOW and WEAR GLOVES

I have these 500* rubber gloves that go nearly to my elbows.

Now when I say to go slow, "dropping the bird into the oil" is a figure of speech.

SLOWLY lower the bird into the oil. I've cooked a few 18-20# birds and it has taken up to 2 minutes to get the bird down in there. Every demonstration you see on the news of how "not" to do it, drops it in and backs up, for even with the correct amount of oil, there's no way it aint boiling over.

So with the gloves, I have a dense denim insulated jacket on, jeans, and work boots. I skip the normal sweat pants and sandals in favor of common sense safety.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Good point. People forget or don't realize that the oil still needs to find it's way into the cavity and nooks of the bird as it goes down.

I agree with dropping it in slowly!! If you have any ice crystals in the cavity, you will find out real quick and again avoid a boil over situation. Make sure your bird is completely thawed!!

Check out the "Good Eats" episode where AB fries a turkey. He had a ladder over the fryer and used a pulley system to lower the bird into the oil. If you want to lower the bird in slowly this seemed like the contraption that would let you do that.