The Smokin' Thanksgiving Turkey....a work in progress!

We are in the process of preparing the bird for Thanksgiving, so I am trying to document the process as we go along. This is a 1st for us, so if it doesn't turn out good no other family members will be subjected to eating it! We went with a 12lb turkey. I took it out of the freezer last Wednesday to start the thawing process in the fridge, by Sunday the 18th it was completley unthawed. We decided to do a brine. After much research on the different brines we went with the kept in simple stupid method for fear of screwing it up. Our brine consisted of 3/4 cup of kosher salt, 3/4 cup of brown sugar, 1 gallon of water, 1/4 cup of peppercorns, a whole garlic head, one zest from an orange, and some dried rosemary. We boiled up some water on dissolved the sugar and salt, then added the rest of the mixture and water to the brining container. This set in the fridge overnight to come back down to a colder mixture, so we don't have to worry about bacteria contaminating the turkey. Monday morning I took the turkey out of the fridge and cleaned it all out and then in the brine it goes for 48 hours, it made it in the mixture around 8:45am.....stay tuned for more updates!

The ingredients

The mixture all mixed up and ready to cool in the fridge

The turkey ready for a good 2 day soak