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Did the turkey in the regular oven (wife wasn't willing to risk a
failure). However, Saturday, we had a post-Thanksgiving pizza party
followed by cooking of our backup turkey. Thursday's was a 25lb
monster that yielded some OK results but was kind of stringy (not my
wife's fault - it was the turkey...moist but as white meat folks not a
lot of leftovers from the 8 folks at dinner).
Saturday's backup turkey was a 10lb turkey breast. I soaked it
overnight in a brine solution (1 1/4 cups salt, 1 1/4 cup sugar
dissolved in 1 qt hot tap water, whisked until the sugar was
dissolved...added 4 more qts of cold water, the turkey breast, an
onion quartered with bay leaves pinned to the qtrs using whole cloves
and an orange sliced with the juice squeezed into the water).
After taking the turkey out of the brine solution I drizzled it with
olive oil, ground fresh pepper over it, dusted it with Mrs. Dash
seasoning and put it into a foil roasting pan. I covered it with a
double layer of aluminum foil tightly crimped around the pan edges.
I put it into the oven we had used for pizza. The dome brick temp was
400F and the hearth bricks were 350F. I checked it after an hour &
half but it was only at 155F. The dome bricks were running 450F
(wicking it from the outside of the brick) and the floor was still
340-350F.
I left it in until it had spent 18 minutes a pound (3 hrs). The bird
topped 190F (which means I could have reduced the time a bit) but
although "overcooked" it was moist, succulent, and delicious. It
sliced better than the Thursday bird and yielded more meat than
Thursday's did too. The moist heat of the oven allows for more
tolerance in overcooking. In the electric oven it would have been dry
and tough at 190F+. In the brick oven it was better than any turkey
I've ever had. My wife agrees. In fact we're seriously considering
cooking next year's main bird in there.
Other things I'll try now -- pulling it out at 15 mins/lb, starting
another fire and putting the bird back in surrounded by the flames to
brown & crisp the skin (we're not skin eaters so the lack of browning
didn't bother us but presentation can be a lot when serving to
others). Also, I'll try a "quick smoke" process where this fire gets a
dose of water soaked hickory chips to push a bunch of smoke out &
potentially give me the same results as using my smoker (which takes 8
hrs to yield a hickory smoked turkey).
We've also decided to try a suckling pig...probably in the spring.
Jim
failure). However, Saturday, we had a post-Thanksgiving pizza party
followed by cooking of our backup turkey. Thursday's was a 25lb
monster that yielded some OK results but was kind of stringy (not my
wife's fault - it was the turkey...moist but as white meat folks not a
lot of leftovers from the 8 folks at dinner).
Saturday's backup turkey was a 10lb turkey breast. I soaked it
overnight in a brine solution (1 1/4 cups salt, 1 1/4 cup sugar
dissolved in 1 qt hot tap water, whisked until the sugar was
dissolved...added 4 more qts of cold water, the turkey breast, an
onion quartered with bay leaves pinned to the qtrs using whole cloves
and an orange sliced with the juice squeezed into the water).
After taking the turkey out of the brine solution I drizzled it with
olive oil, ground fresh pepper over it, dusted it with Mrs. Dash
seasoning and put it into a foil roasting pan. I covered it with a
double layer of aluminum foil tightly crimped around the pan edges.
I put it into the oven we had used for pizza. The dome brick temp was
400F and the hearth bricks were 350F. I checked it after an hour &
half but it was only at 155F. The dome bricks were running 450F
(wicking it from the outside of the brick) and the floor was still
340-350F.
I left it in until it had spent 18 minutes a pound (3 hrs). The bird
topped 190F (which means I could have reduced the time a bit) but
although "overcooked" it was moist, succulent, and delicious. It
sliced better than the Thursday bird and yielded more meat than
Thursday's did too. The moist heat of the oven allows for more
tolerance in overcooking. In the electric oven it would have been dry
and tough at 190F+. In the brick oven it was better than any turkey
I've ever had. My wife agrees. In fact we're seriously considering
cooking next year's main bird in there.
Other things I'll try now -- pulling it out at 15 mins/lb, starting
another fire and putting the bird back in surrounded by the flames to
brown & crisp the skin (we're not skin eaters so the lack of browning
didn't bother us but presentation can be a lot when serving to
others). Also, I'll try a "quick smoke" process where this fire gets a
dose of water soaked hickory chips to push a bunch of smoke out &
potentially give me the same results as using my smoker (which takes 8
hrs to yield a hickory smoked turkey).
We've also decided to try a suckling pig...probably in the spring.
Jim
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