Step 1: Plan ahead. Recipe starts with a thawed turkey!
Step 2: Ready your fridge! You'll need to put the turkey in a 5 gallon pail and then in the fridge overnight so you may just want to plan ahead by finding the pail, cleaning as necessary, and removing shelves and such from the fridge. I don't recommend putting the turkey outside in the cold overnight - but hey, that's your call; maybe you want to encourage coons and cats to hang out and provide the cold wildlife with a free meal. But, that might just put you behind in your turkey preparation...I'm just saying....
Step 3: Get going on making ice. You'll need quite a bit. Or cheat and go buy some. Lazy.
14-16 pound turkey
Brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 gallon veggie stock (modify as necessary)
1 Tbsp black peppercorns
1 1/2 tsp allspice berries
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1 gallon heavily iced water
Aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
rosemary
sage
Other important items:
canola oil
emptied fridge
5 gallon bucket
Combine vegetable stock (I used 4of those concentrated chicken stock tubs and added water to make around a gallon of stock), brown sugar, salt, berries, pepper, and ginger in stockpot and heat until it boils and your sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Cool. Put in fridge if you aren't ready to proceed yet. I did not have a big enough stockpot so I simply did this step two times until it was all done. I put this in the bucket let it cool slightly and moved on. The recipe assumes you are doing this part a day or two ahead - I did it the day before. Your choice.
Day or night before you want to eat - combine the above brine mix with your heavily iced water. Place your thawed turkey in this bucket. Of course you have removed the innards cuz that would be silly not to. It says to put the turkey in breast side down and weigh it down if necessary. Since my bucket sits vertically (horizontal 5 gallon buckets??? Where do you people shop?) I simply put the bird in so it's legs were sticking out of the brine. Make sure it's fully immersed (if not, ha ha). Refrigerate overnight. Technically the recipe also says it should be covered and you should turn it once half way through. I say just leave forget it cuz it's fully immersed - why would you need to turn it? and let it sit overnight in the cleaned out fridge.
The following day....
Preheat oven to 500. Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard the brine. Place bird on your roasting rack in a half sheet pan. Pat dry with towels.
Combine apple, onion, cinnamon, and 1 cup water in microwave safe bowl and micro for 5 full minutes. Add the rosemary and sage and place into turkey cavity. Tuck wings underneath (no idea) and coat skin liberally with canola oil.
Roast on lowest oven level at 500 for 30 minutes. Insert probe thermometer into thickest part of breast and reduce heat to 350. Assuming you have an oven safe probe leave it in and set alarm for 161 degrees. Should you not have a fancy dancy thermometer - best not to leave it in the oven as it will simply melt (not that I have any experience with this). 14-16 pound bird should take about 2 - 2.5 hours. 20 minutes per pound rule assumes you are roasting at a lower heat thus needing a longer amount of time, I'd guess. Watch that thermometer...or quickly call someone to bring you one should you have melted yours. Once pulled from oven, let it rest loosely covering it with foil for 15 minutes.
Carve. Enjoy! Juicyness worth the effort. Plus it's kinda fun and you feel like a famous chef!
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