Thanksgiving Turkey Processing

[kuntrygirl]

Congrats to everyone who processed and cooked their own birds. All of the stories sound great and the pics looks . Anyone doing it again for Christmas?

As much as we love turkey, no.  When our kids were little, they loved How The Grinch Stole Christmas so much that they wanted 'roast beast' for Christmas dinner.  Since we raised sheep, leg of lamb seemed to fill the bill nicely.  It's been the holiday tradition ever since.  Even though the wee sprouts are now 30 and 27, they still expect to come to our house for Christmas dinner, which must absolutely be succulent, tender, mouth-watering thin slices of 'roast beast'!!!

I was nearly strung up by my heals one year when I suggested we try roast goose!  NEVER AGAIN!

~S

I had to laugh when I read (How The Grinch Stole Christmas) "roast beast". I don't blame them for wanting that beast.

Roast goose? Uh, I don't think so.

 

[Oregon Blues]

............... When I pulled it out of the freezer, the bacon was stuck to the cutting board (next time I will spray a little cooking oil on the board), so I had to scrape it off. With the braided blanket frozen, ............

Very clever. I wondered how you kept it in such perfect arrangement.

Anytime you want to freeze things and then remove them frozen from the container, use silicone bake ware. If the bacon had been put onto a cookie sheet topped with a silicon baking sheet, it would have come right off. I use this method to freeze fruit for storage and to semi-freeze chunks of meat that I am going to grind.

I use silicon baking pans to freeze enchiladas. I can then peel the pan off and wrap them up to be stored in the freezer. That frees my pan up to be used again. Then when I cook them, I just take the wrappings off, put them back into the pan and into the oven.

We always have roast beast for Christmas, too, but at my house it has always been a standing rib roast. Over the years, it has turned into a very expensive tradition, but we are still managing to get it purchased.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I had to laugh when I read (How The Grinch Stole Christmas) "roast beast". I don't blame them for wanting that beast.
Roast goose? Uh, I don't think so.

My nephew went through a Dickens phase, so ordered Roast Goose for Christmas one year. We agreed I'd stick to Turkey and Duck in the future.

 

[debir1966]

Just wanted to update. We deep fried one of our home-grown Broad-Breasted White turkeys for Thanksgiving. None of us were very impressed, but I had never had deep-fried turkey before, so I had nothing to compare it to. Since then I have been told that you HAVE TO inject your turkey if you are going to deep fry it, that injecting makes ALL the difference in the world for flavor, etc.

Because I wanted to havea good comparison to what I have had in the past (store bought turkey) - we roasted one of our turkeys for Christmas. WOW - what a HUGE difference! It was tasty, tendy, juicy... SOOOO good!!! I will never buy store turkey again!!

So I just need to figure out this whole deep frying thing LOL for a little variety

Next year I am getting another 5 BBW, and I am getting 15 heritage poults (different breeds). I will be keeping 6ish of the heritage birds for my own breeders and eating the rest. I hope we will have another discussion simular to this one next year

 

[katsdar]

Hi,
did you brine your turkey before you cooked it? This last one that you put in the oven.

 

[debir1966]

Nope! We have not tried the wonderful art of brining yet - I ask my husband every time we cook a turkey (excep the fried one LOL) and every time he says nope. He is not very good with change LOL. We just slow roast, sometimes breast up, sometimes breast down (depends on if we need to impress anyone with looks LOL - we prefer breast down for juicyness). We do not use stuffing (cooked seperately) but do sometimes put in veggies/fruits for flavoring, sometimes just herbs and spices. We do not baste anymore, but keep the lid on and let'er cook! Since we stopped basting, we stopped having major dryness issues with the breast! I also do not butter, bacon, or anything else on a regular basis, though I have done different things in the past that we have liked as well.

 

[katsdar]

Thanks, It is that I have never had a home grown bird and was told that if you did not brine then it would be tough, thanks for dispelling that myth
Kat

 

[ChezPoulez]

Thanks, It is that I have never had a home grown bird and was told that if you did not brine then it would be tough, thanks for dispelling that myth
Kat

lol hogwash!
I learned early on to not listen to the nonsense I heard from folks who didn't know any better.

I raised 8-10 turkeys every year for years and usually aimed for not much more than 20 pounds, but sometimes things just don't work that way. One year I got an early start so all my toms got crazy big... about 28 pounds, which was just too big, so I dropped off all the toms at a butcher who did smoking and had them all smoked, then cut in half. We gave a lot of those smoked turkey halves to family members for Christmas and they were thrilled. All the hens were small enough to make nice size roasters and every other month we had a smoked turkey dinner with lots of great sliced meat for sandwiches too.

Brining is nice, and it certainly adds moisture and flavor, but there's nothing wrong with a home grown turkey. I put a lemon and an orange into the food processor with lots of FRESH rosemary and bay leaves. I pulse till it's all chopped up and then add it to my brine.

 

[debir1966]

This is my first year raising my own turkeys and the one we just had for Christmas was tender, moist (even leftovers are moist - whereas regular roasted store-turkey the white meat would have been like eating dry toast by now) and very flavorful, - with no brining

 

[katsdar]

that sounds good, what kind of turkey do you get and how old are they when you butcher them,