The greatest brine for smoked turkey is this one. This recipe was given to me by my uncle, a devoted meat smoker.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 10 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 34 cups |
Ingredients
- 2 gallons water
- 1 ½ cups canning salt
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
- 3 tablespoons minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Mix together water, salt, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and pepper in a food-grade bucket or container large enough to hold your turkey. Carefully submerge turkey in brine.
- Cover and store in the refrigerator. Soak for two days before smoking or roasting.
- This recipe uses canning or kosher salt, not table salt. Using table salt in this amount will make the brine too salty.
- Always brine foods in a food-grade, nonreactive container such as a stainless steel or enameled stockpot, a brining bag, or a food-grade plastic bucket. Never use household trash bags, plastic trash cans, metal buckets, or containers not meant for food use.
Reviews
Yum
The perfect turkey brine. I used this recipe for a spatchcock turkey for the first time and it was a hit. I have been selected to make the turkey every Thanksgiving from now on. I also used a modified version of the recipe on a ham and it was amazing as well.
Good basic brine. Added 1 cup orange juice, 2 dried pasilla-ancho peppers without seeds, and 50% more brown sugar. Made before following the recipe exactly. Was good, but I wanted to tweak to my taste. I find 1 day of soaking in the brine has worked fine, as I splatchcock the bird ( or just do breasts), and 14lb is the largest bird I will smoke
Wow! Just as delicious as everyone says in the comments. Super easy to prepare, just invest in a brine bag and a 5 gallon home store bucket. I did not cook the brine to dissolve but I did turn/shake the bucket every 6 hours or so.
The recipe calls for canning salt. I purchased the green box of Morton Canning salt specifically to brine one of the 3 birds I was brining for Thanksgiving. The canning salt crystals are significantly smaller than kosher salt and when weighed I got ~25% heavier salt content than with kosher salt. I cut the canning salt to 1 cup and it still was saltier than the 2 other birds using my regular brining recipe. The recipe should be corrected.
To Paulette Broadbent: If your turkey turned out too salty, it’s because the size of the salt grains or ‘corns’ that you used were too small. You want to use large grain salt, such as kosher salt, or large grain sea salt. Never use fine grained salt for a recipe like this, because it doubles the amount of salt in the recipe. If all you have is fine grained salt, you need to cut the amount of salt in half. I hope this helps someone. Have a wonderful thanksgiving!!!
I spatchcocked my turkey beforehand last year and brined it for 24 hours in this brine and threw it on the smoker on turkey day. The taste was outstanding with the brine and Herbs De Provenance and olive oil as the binder. This year i will use the same brine but add some oranges and whole peppercorn. I also boiled the brine last year and will do the same thing this year.
4 for simplicity. We shall see how the turkey smokes in 2 days! Could not find any canning salt, so halved the amount using coarse Himalayan pink salt. Will let you know how it comes out. Warmed the water to tepid so the salt would dissolve. Was about 2 spots under pasta water, so think I’m good.
I’ve been making this brine for years and it is always successful. Like one of the other reviewers stated, I bring one gallon of water to a boil with all the other ingredients to make sure the flavors meld and the sugar and salt dissolve. I let it cool before adding the additional water and submersing the turkey. Also, make sure you rinse the turkey well after brining. My turkey is never too salty and always juicy!
this brine never goes wrong – so much flavor, so much juiciness!
Absoulutely amazing. No changes to the recipe. I wondering if I can try this frying a turkey.
Made a few changes to the recipe. Added extra garlic & bay leaves. Turned out fantastic!!
This was life changing. I’ve never brined a turkey before, but will never skip this process again. I love this recipe since it was simple and u had all the ingredients already. Followed as is. Perfect!
Only way to make a turkey.
I have made this 3 times. The first time it was delicious but seemed a little too salty. But the leftovers were not salty. The second time I cut down the brine time to 40 hours. It was also delicious and not salty at all. But the big difference was we rinsed the bird a lot more. The third time we brined for 48 hours and really rinsed the bird. It was amazing and not salty. You really have to make sure you rinse the bird really well. Including under the skin. The second and third time we let the bird dry for 24 hours in the refrigerator. Another thing we added was to boil a small portion of the water with the all the ingredients in it so it would cause the salt to dissolve. Then we added the remaining water. Just make sure you let that cool in the refrigerator before you put the bird in.
It’s a good brine !
Very good. Hard to rate 5 because this was my first time smoking a turkey. So I have nothing to compare with. Instead of the 48 hours to soak in, I was only able to soak for 20 hours because of procrastination. Lol. Either way it was delicious. I also wasn’t able to let sit in fridge open to the air so that the skin would dry out a little. If you want the skin crispy then this process is a must. Sooo juicy. Funny thing is is that I probably won’t try anything else I think I’m stuck on this one for a while.
Made this turkey brine for Thanksgiving and it made the turkey very moist.
Great flavor and juiciness, but I could not find canning salt and and other recipes stated kosher was “less salty” and comparable. Next time I’ll cut back by a 1/3 and it shod be fine.
Having brined a lot of turkeys before, I was a skeptic about the name of this recipe, “Out of this World Turkey Brine.” So several weeks before Thanksgiving (2020) I did a test turkey, defrosting in the refrigerator for 24 hours, then brining in the refrigerator for 48 hours, followed by smoking the turkey. Wow! Amazing! This was truly the most tender and delicious smoked turkey I have ever made. I’m sold. I doubt I will ever use another brine again. Thank you!
No changes aside from adding some sliced sweet onions to the brine. Best smoked turkey ever!