What do you mean by "slow"? We do a high-heat roast.

In my last few tests, I have been cooking it covered at 180d for 10 hours or so getting the temperature up to 170d when done. Although it has good quality moisture, I seem to be losing out on drippings for gravy and getting tough skin.

Maybe I have to choose one method or the other.

Just wondering if others have had the same experiences.

As my grandmother did and as my mother did, I do -- I "roast" the turkey in a slow oven (275) overnight. I do cook it in a covered roasting pan but I get LOTS of drippings! It's not really "roast" turkey but more "baked" turkey. To me, both Christmas and Thanksgiving is not that holiday unless you wake to the smell of a roasting bird.

My new theory is now Baked then Roasted.... Low temperature until it reaches 165d (10 hours?) then blast it for crisper skin and more drippings....

"Low and slow" = "juicy and tender"

The more dripping = dryer turkey.

dcarch

"425 until the thigh tests 158 to 160 and then let it rest"

So you suggest a blast furnace to cook it from the outside to in. The thigh reaches the 150-160 temperature long before the center of the bird does. Long live Ecoli.... Shall we invite Sal Monella to the table too?

Just want to point it out, if you go with this slow speed, no one is going to have your turkey today. It's time to speed up. :-)

It was started at Midnight. Right now the temperature is 156d and it looks as if it will be all set for the 2pm dinner time which, in this household, is variable anyway.

Sufficient juices/drippings for gravy seem to be sufficient this year. I wonder what happened in the past when I had none to speak of....

"425 until the thigh tests 158 to 160 and then let it rest"

So you suggest a blast furnace to cook it from the outside to in.
The thigh reaches the 150-160 temperature long before the center of the
bird does. Long live Ecoli.... Shall we invite Sal Monella to the
table too?

Not true at all.

As long as the meat temperature reaches 165d within a reasonable time of rising above 40d, the only difference between the blast force method of high temperature and slow cook is moisture of the meat. Is it not?A sloppy cook may have problems in contamination/handling but that has nothing to do with cooking it.

So many of these "rules" have been debunked and all it takes is being careful. I'll bet you still wash your turkey when you disrobe it from the wrapper.

I'm sure not putting that to the test.

Emerogork. Can you please post a link showing the safety of leaving a uncooked turkey out in a warm room all nigh t?

Ok, Here is an argument against slow roasting: The oven automatically turns off after 12 hours of cooking. ): I wondered why the temperature started dropping. It must have happened about 1/2 hour ago....

"Emerogork. Can you please post a link showing the safety of leaving a uncooked turkey out in a warm room all night?"

I edited that part out because my original discussion was incomplete when I used copy/paste to place my post. The 24 hour test was strictly about the presence of the germs/diseases and not about the toxins they produce which are not killed by heat. It was not my intention to suggest that meat left out over night was safe at all. There are other factors to consider.

Defrosting a turkey in a refrigerator and allowing it to reach room temperature before cooking will not usually be sufficient time for hazardous levels of toxins to form. However, if they were already there before freezing then you are at risk because, again, cooking will not save you from the toxins.

That said, washing your turkey is still more hazardous than not.

I know I have that link here somewhere and will post it when I can find it. The information was grouped with many other false "rules" about cooking.

Is your turkey done yet? Take a photo for us? :-) I don't think the meat and bones are still attached after these many hours........it should look like dry turkey stew. :-)

When the thickest part of the thigh is 160....the interior will be a safe temperature....and with an at least 425 oven....450 is really better, that interior will get to a safe temperature quicker.
As for high heat blasting the turkey dry....try it!! Do you cook your steaks low and slow to keep them juicy? Or are they dry and dead before they are medium rare?
If Martha says it it must be so!
https://www.marthastewart.com/347005/roasted-heritage-turkey

The last few years I have either worked where hubby cooked the Turkey or had Thanksgiving with relatives. And every time the Turkey was dry. This year we had dinner with friends but before Thanksgiving I just had to cook a juicy turkey. I could not go another year eating dry Turkey. We bought an 18 pound turkey. I spatchcocked it (removed the spine and severed the breastbone to get the bird mostly flat) and cooked it uncovered at 450 degrees for 90 minutes. Let it rest for 30 minutes. It was juicy but there was not very much drippings for gravy. I am going to do this every year from now on.

I guess I am just too Norman Rockwellian to cook turkey any other way than Whole Bird. I did try spatchcock once but, well OK. It wasn't bad. I have probably cooked 25 - 30 birds in my life. Some very dry, one so under cooked that we had to do Thanksgiving meatless. Others were impressive but not all.

I am hooked on my slow cook recipe and this year turned out to be the best. Joints gave away with a slight tug. Both breast meat and thigh meat were very moist. It remains to be seen if I can do it again or not.

With the abundance of stuffing and dressing left over this year I will probably drop the stuffing next year. Even though I have designed a tool to hold the bird for stuffing and that it is easy to do, stuffing has become just a bit too moist for my aging taste buds.

I also poke various metal skewers into the joints that it looks like an acupuncture session. They carry the heat right into the joints to make sure they are cooked.

I also designed an addon for my turkey pan to accommodate larger birds and make it a practice to cook it fully covered except for the 500d session after it is cooked for skin crisping.

The bird is cooked on a rack to elevate it from the juices.

I do an excellent gravy which is the whole purpose for cooking a bird in the first place. My brother says that the whole purpose for gravy is mashed potatoes.

I am told that this year's bird was one my top three. This was the third year for the slow cook method and they keep getting better as I fine tune the recipe. I find that the wait time before putting it into the oven can be trimmed the idea of which has horrified several here in this thread. (:

Since the oven apparently has a safety feature that it shuts down after 12 hours, I will probably raise the temperature to 200 for a shorter cooking time, again to the relief of some readers here.

No one has ever become sick from one of my birds and I will post any hospitalization reports in a few days should any develop....

"If Martha says it it must be so!"

I have heard so much discussion against washing poultry that I was surprised that Martha Stewart suggested to do it. Then I noted that it is a 2010 publication. I wonder if she still recommends it.

Still, I no longer want to gamble with high temperatures that way. For years, my mother cooked it at 325 or so and (from my memory which improves her cooking over time) it was always a good meal.

Yes, when I cook a roast beef, for example, it is also slow and low but I have given up on the bag and water idea. It is probably good but it seems that there is something unholy about that.

Did you read about ATK debating the idea of basting? They cooked birds with no basting, birds with scheduled basting, and birds just opening and closing the door while cooking. They found no difference.

I suspect that there really was but it was not in their test. I find that when I baste, I am adding flavor from the drippings to the skin. Maybe there were only testing for moistness.

"Is your turkey done yet? Take a photo for us? :-) I don't think the meat
and bones are still attached after these many hours........it should
look like dry turkey stew. :-) "

A lot of things must have gone right accidentally this time but it was one of the best I have ever cooked. I am not sure if I am repeating myself as I have the same discussion happening in two other fora.

I learned the the stove shuts off after 12 hours so I just might shorten the cook time and raise the temperature.

The bones did separate easily and all meat was as equally moist as you could want.

Most food does not photograph well especially turkey. Did you know that the ones they have in sitcoms and a lot of cooking shows are trussed, partially boiled, and colored with shoe polish?

The Butterball people say to cook at turkey at 325F. Incidentally, I also cook mine at 325F, neither high heat nor slow roast. Mine is 21 pounds and will have to be in the oven, stuffed, by 8:30 tomorrow morning to be done on time to rest for half an hour and be ready for a 2 pm meal.

How many turkeys have I cooked? Well, we always have turkey for both Christmas and Thanksgiving and usually Easter, and I started doing the family dinners when I was 19. It was the year I got married to my first husband, 1974. So three turkeys a year, minimum, for 43 years, that's 129 turkeys and it's only the ones for holidays, not additional birthdays or when I got a turkey cheap or when we raised them. Add those and I've cooked probably 100 birds for the family dinners. We also owned a bar and grille which was open every day except Christmas Day and we did 8 turkeys in Nesco roasters for holiday meals three times per year (Thanksgiving/Christmas/ Easter) until we sold the place, which was about 20 years, so add 480 turkeys to my total. (grin) Those, however, we always did the same way: stuff them, put them into a cooking bag, into the Nesco for 4 or 5 hours at 350F, don't take off the lid. It was helpful to be able to hold the turkeys and stuffing in the roasters so it stayed hot for serving.

I've done the high heat roast, I've done them stuffed and unstuffed. I've done them in one of those "oilless" turkey fryers, I've spatchcocked them and disassembled them into pieces which got roasted. We've done them grilled and smoked and in cooking bags and tented with foil and herb rubbed and basted and unbasted and salted and brined. I have never deep fried one, though, and Elery did the one on the grill.

I always go back to the same way. Get a fresh bird from a local Amish farm or raise one myself. Brine a minimum of 12 hours. Stuff the bird, bake it at 325F in my big stainless steel roaster with a cover and a rack. About 5 hours for a stuffed 20 pound bird, and you can remove the cover the last hour or so if you want the skin crispy. Check the temperature and be sure to let the turkey rest for about half an hour before carving. It's moist, it's juicy, it's well flavored. It works for us.

I've never cooked a turkey all night and I don't know anyone who has, so I can't comment on the technique for lack of experience. As for gravy, well, my girls used to tell me that mashed potatoes were simply containers for holding the gravy. (grin)

Happy Thanksgiving, I hope everyone's turkey was done to their liking and breakfast is the rest of the pie! Our meal won't be until Saturday so watch, this will be the year I mess up the turkey...

Annie

Anne1992: "The Butterball people say to cook at turkey at 325F. Incidentally, I also cook mine at 325F, neither high heat nor slow roast. Mine is 21
pounds and will have to be in the oven, stuffed, by 8:30 tomorrow
morning to be done on time to rest for half an hour and be ready for a 2
pm meal."

I just realized one thing that makes a significant difference in slow cook VS other cooks... I am purchasing 10 - 12 lb birds. Certainly a far cry from your 21 lb units.

One follow up from yesterday's success story is that after cooling, carving and refrigerating over night is that this morning meat is a bit more dry that I am used to. Of course, that is why mayonnaise was invented, no?

FWIW, I cooked a larger than normal bird this year - about 19# - and I did it the way I always do: 30 minutes @ 425F, then turn down to between 335-340F, tented w/ foil & set timer for 1 hour, checked and set timer for another 45 minutes, checked again & after maybe 20-25 minutes more it was done to a turn. My recipe (adapted from an old issue of Gourmet magazine) recommends thigh temp. of 180F, breast measured 165F.

I always get a fresh bird & coat it inside & out w/ a paprika-based herb/spice blend so it comes out rather dark and makes a dark rich gravy.

There are so many fights when you discuss food safety, temperature and timing. That is because there are many variables and many different needs, many correct answers and many wrong answers on the internet.

The official USDA recommendation guidelines have no choice but to take a very conservative position.

Regarding turkey:

1. How cold is the frozen turkey? possible from 32F to - 4F.

2. How warm is the turkey? possible from 32F to 75F.

3. How cold is your refrigerator? Can be over 50F.

4. How accurate is your oven? can be off by 50F.

5. What kind of oven do you have? Electric? Gas? Convection? They all cook differently even set at the same temperature.

6. How big is your turkey? Timing and temperature based on weight is highly unreliable. I have never seem recommendations talk about the larger the turkey the more skin surface area to take in more heat. Trussing and none trussing makes a difference also.

If you can define your cooking conditions, you can cook at much lower temperature and longer cooking time. There are information you can find about what is actual safe temperatures for any meat., not the ones meant for the very sick and very weak.

Also keep in mind that it does not matter what cooking temperature is above 212F. whether 500F or 320F, food can never get higher then 212F, and thermal conductivity of any substance is a constant and cannot be change. It takes the same amount of time for temperature to travel certain distance into a specific food. In other words, for the interior temperature to reach 165F, it takes the same amount of time whether the cooking temperature is 500F or 300F.

Happy Thanksgiving!

dcarch

I cook mine unstuffed, which I think helps it heat through faster...

emerogork, even dry turkey is pretty good, I really like turkey. Somehow they don't all come out perfectly, but imperfect is still better than no turkey leftovers at all! And yes, that's what mayo is for, and gravy too.

I used to do two smaller birds, or one turkey and one ham, but the Amish farm who raises my turkey doesn't seem to ever raise anything less than 20 pounds, I guess it's not cost effective to sell those small ones.

Annie

Turkeys these days are bred to mature in a very short time...poult to more than 29 pounds in 8 weeks. So a 10 to 12 pound bird is very immature. I used to have a place where I could get a turkey that size They were always missing a wing or a leg, an injured bird that was butchered young. The flavor and fat of those young birds was very different from a more mature bird.
Like Annie, I have cooked hundreds of turkeys, Christmas and Easter for many many years, as well as just because I was having a lot of people for an informal meal and needed a lot of meat.
For a lot of years my standard was 425 for 30 minutes and turn it down to 325 until the juices in the juices in the leg run clear when poked.
I tried the 180 degrees once before I knew better and it was no better and I got tired of smelling that turkey all night ( it was a2 0 pound bird)>
I think 425 is the best....and my new favorite way to cook....for maybe 20 years.

I was under the impression that weight was an indicator of gender and not maturity. Hen turkey are in the lower range (10 - 18 lbs) and Tom turkeys 18 lbs or higher. I was also told that Toms are not as tender as hens.

You seem to find different. Maybe there really is none.

Also, I have never purchased, or seen for that matter, a turkey with a limb missing. When I purchase a lobster, a missing claw (cull) means more meat/shell in either the tail or remaining claw making it a better purchase. I wonder if there is any reflection on meat/bone in a cull turkey....

If I remember, I will ask my butcher about that

I agree, Turkey fragrance all night can be a problem. (:

Follow up /Left Overs

At the dinner, I was not all that impressed with my stuffing but really liked the dressing.

When I was carving up the bird and making soup I ended up discarding most of the stuffing. Now that it a day later, I find that I prefer the stuffing over the dressing. I also read about using a griddle to make dressing waffles. All the indents are crisper and hold gravy. Now I will have to wait until next time to find out about stuffing waffles.

A new day-after invention, maybe? Fried Mashed potatoes...!

Fried mashed potatoes is not new LOL.. many ways to do it but to make it simple just make patties with the potatoes and fry them in some hot oil.

I fried them around as I would with home fries. This batch was particularly lumpy because I used a hand masher instead of creaming them in a mixer.

Potato cakes!..add an egg and make patties and dredge in flour and fry in butter! My kids called them potatoes with scabs.
The missing leg or wing on the turkey was a recent injury and the grower butchers them rather than have them die. There is no difference in taste.
Male turkeys do grow bigger...but these days, growers castrate the males so tough is not an issue. I have not seen a frozen turkey with missing parts in the case for years...it used to be a summer favorite to roast just for sandwiches.

Not at all sure where you got the idea that a one clawed lobster has more meat in the shell....just the opposite is likely to be true. Lobsters use their claws to catch and eat food and a one clawed lobster would be at a disadvantage....but never fear a lobster grows a missing claw back but during the growing back time, it's not likely to put on weight but just to survive. But in reality those one clawed lobsters you find in the tank have lost that claw in a tussle with another lobster in shipping or storage.

It is all a matter of weight. A 2 lb cull has the same weight as a 2 lb normal lobster. Therefore the amount of meat in the other claw and/or the tail is more in the cull. Not more meat per lobster, just a larger tail and remaining claw. Serves as whole piece of meat , they are larger and of course chopped makes no difference....

Tom turkeys do grow larger than hens, given time, but today's Broad Breasted White turkeys, which make up the very large percentage of turkeys sold commercially today, grow so quickly that the difference in young birds is negligible. Mature weight for a Tom can be 45 pounds, whereas mature weight for a hen is about 25 pounds. However, if you want a 10 or 12 pound bird, that's an 8 week old Tom or a 10 week old hen, too young to really tell a difference, even if not castrated.

I got an email about those stuffing/dressing waffles, and the same place also put mashed potatoes into the waffle iron. They did season them and add egg, enough to hold them together, then "waffled" them. I'm not a fan of stuffing/dressing, but I might like it if it were "waffled" crispy enough.....

Annie

Your 2 pound cull was a bigger lobster to begin with....and since I like the claw meat best, that's not something I would seek. And it would also depend on which claw was missing, the grabber claw or the picker claw.

Either way, it is 2 lbs and the cull is much cheaper/lb.
Yes, grabber or picker is a valid point, never thought of that.

I still find it interesting that a cull turkey is available. Are they cheaper by the lb?

Like annie, I have done turkeys a number of ways (including fried here) and hardly had a bad one.

The worst was the night before my mom passed. I was with her a lot and my DH was trying to keep Thanksgiving on track at home. When he "brined" the turkey, he forgot to put in any salt. We had a watered down turkey with no flavor that wound up undercooked. I got the call that it was time to come back just as we finished eating what we could. We threw most of that turkey away. No one wanted any more of that. I cooked another one a few days later and we reset the good turkey mojo.

The first year in this house, I had one overcooked and dry. The convection roast setting on the oven cooked much faster and some of my guests arrived more than an hour and an hour and a half late. But every other turkey I have cooked has been great and we wind up wondering my we don't cook turkey more often.

I just laugh every time I read the title of this post.

Roarting is fun, no?

I just discovered Roart.com but am not sure what they do....

That website appears to be some kind of architectural firm, although their website designer needs to be a bit more user friendly! Far more fun to roart a turkey!

Annie

It is better to learn it by roart than just get answers...

Yes, and then there's the King of the Jungle version, what happens when a lion eats beans.....

Or Scooby Doo at the art museum: "Ruh Ro....Art". (grin)

Hey "roart" isn't bad at all, I remember crap cakes, puppy seeds and Sherry having a teat in her eye!

Annie