I have never had a turkey defrost totally in the fridge, over 3-4 days. I have always had to put it in a sink full of cold water the night before Thanksgiving.

I've never had an issue defrosting a turkey twice the size in the fridge, but that might actually be helped from having a bigger cavity. Have you removed the neck and giblets? That would be like pulling out a great big ice cube.

How cold do you keep the fridge? The water thing will work, of course, but remember poultry germs. Be very careful with splashes and cleaning up all that water.

There is no way to tell and be sure.

How cold is your refrigerator? How cold is your turkey?

Some refrigerator can be as cold as almost freezing, in which case it will take three months or more to thaw.

If your refrigerator is not that cold, if you can put a small electric fan inside the fridge to circulate air. It will take about one day to thaw.

Or John's water board method, but make sure the water is not higher than 40 F.

dcarch

I have never had a problem defrosting on Sunday. Right now, I have a turkey breast and a 12 lb. turkey in the fridge and they are both leaking a bit, meaning defrosting and I have had to put additional plastic bags around them. Unforturnately, I had to clean the sloppy leaks in the fridge with bleach and paper towels. But it is done now and we are en route to delishness on Thursday! No worries, mon.

I sometimes put my turkey in my cooler/ice chest to thaw. It's like a big ole chunk of ice in there keeping itself cold and I just watch it when it starts to thaw to make sure it doesn't get too warm. Juice leakage is contained, it's out of the way. Works great for me.

I always give mine 5 days at least to thaw. I usually remove one of the crispers and put the bird in it's air-tight sealed bag in a plastic container which fits where the crisper drawer was.

Whatever size, I always put mine in the frig, and then on Wed AM (or you can do it after work) I take it out and put in a sink of cool water. Empty the water every 30 minutes or so and turn the bird over and fill with cool water again. When the breast and the back feel soft, drain and put in pan in frig overnight. You should be good to go Thursday AM. I usually try to get the giblets out of the body and neck cavity before putting in the frig. You can go ahead and simmer them in water Wednesday night. You can go ahead and do this today and just put in frig until Thursday. Whatever you do do not put the turkey on the counter or in the sink without using the water method. Our grandparents could get away with this, but with our modern turkeys it is not safe.

I think the problem is that my fridge temp is too cold, thus the lack of progress. I've raised the temp a bit and will hope that by tomorrow I see some real progress.

Thanks for all your insight!

Update: On Wednesday, we put the bird into a clean 5-gallon bucket lined with a trash bag. Filled with cold water and placed in the fridge.

Our bird was perfectly defrosted by Thursday morning and cooked beautifully!

In fact, best bird ever, we think!

Thanks for helping me think through this!

Great!

Glad it worked out for you. But having a refrigerator at holiday time with enough room to put in a 5 gal pail? Whew! I don't know if I could do that any time of year!

It's our spare fridge ;-)

Glad it worked out, but if the turkey is not wrapped in plastic, don't use a trash bag that will come in contact with it. They are not food safe plastic. If it's unwrapped, and you don't use a food safe plastic liner, be sure the bucket is food safe, too.

The turkey was wrapped tightly and didn't leak, than goodness.