First and foremost it saturates every nook and cranny of your bird giving you a head start on keeping your bird hydrated while cooking. As everyone who has cooked a turkey before knows it's tough to keep a turkey moist while assaulting it with high heat for hours on end. The second thing it does is when you use spices in your brine it is going saturate the bird as well and give your turkey a nice even and thorough flavor. Brine the bird how you want to just make sure to include in your brine; Salt, Sugar, Water, and Seasonings. I love Alton Browns Recipe for Roasting a Turkey and that's the recipe I am posting here. So remember regardless of how you are cooking your turkey, by smoke or by fire, by fryer or by oven you want to brine your turkey to give it as much flavor and moisture as possible.
Recipe: Roast Turkey
Summary: Brining and Roasting a Turkey
Ingredients
For the brine:- 1 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1 gallon vegetable stock
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- 1 1/2 teaspoons allspice berries
- 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger
- 1 gallon heavily iced water
- 1 red apple, sliced
- 1/2 onion, sliced
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 cup water
- 4 sprigs rosemary
- 6 leaves sage
- Canola oil
Instructions
- 2 to 3 days before roasting: Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F. Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, and candied ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.
- Early on the day or the night before you'd like to eat: Combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining.
- Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard the brine. Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels. Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey's cavity along with the rosemary and sage. Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil. Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes.
- Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.
Cooking time (duration): 5,760
Number of servings (yield): 12
Meal type: dinner
Culinary tradition: USA (General)
My rating: stars 
