I've got a 24 lb turkey brining with this recipe right now - going to smoke him Saturday. I found an older thread hear where everyone was raving about this brine recipe, and decided to finally give it a try. I've got a party next weekend, so this weekend is the trial run to make sure I dont kill them.
The only thing I wasn't sure about is the cheesecloth + butter wrapping mentioned in the original post. I plan to do it exactly as described, but dont really know why. Is this for coloration, or does it act as sort of a Texas crutch for turkeys to get the braising effect?
One other point - the turkey farm where I bought it told me to temperature probe in the fattest part of the drumstick, and to pull from heat once reaching 165F. They said the thicker breast temp would continue rising (I know that to be true) and would also hit 165F, and not to probe thebreat becuase a lot of juice would be lost. Does anyone else follow this strategy of probing the drumstick?