Turkey prep musings - Thanksgiving 2021

We're in the thick of it now. It's officially Thanksgiving week, which means my counters and fridge are overflowing with ingredients, ready to tackle the mountain of dishes I plan to cook up this week, including all the necessary ingredients to make and freeze some leftover turkey pot pies.

Despite *Science telling us otherwise, our favorite has continued to be the Alton Brown wet brine. We have made many birds many ways in our past 21 Thanksgivings as a couple, including the pre-brining years, dry brines and wet brines of various ilk, the miserably attempted smoked year (threw the whole thing out it was so bad), the amazing sous vide year, and various combos of whole, pieced, and spatchcocked.

Every year we don't make the Alton bird, we regret it. We go a couple years without it, trying new ways, then do the Alton wet brine and go "yeah, this is the best for us." We experimented the last two years, and had resolved to do the Alton method this year--our first in the new house. But never content to Just Do The Thing Already, I had a thought...

We loved the meat of Alton's wet brine, but preferred the flavor and texture of the skin in the dry brine (not by much, but enough to notice). Could they work together? If we wet brine for 24 hr+ , then do an overnight light dry brine (with maybe some herbs?), to dry out the skin a bit and add flavor there, would that work? I can't imagine 8 hours in the fridge could undo all the moisture gains of the 24 hr+, but it would most certainly help the skin to dry and flavor up a bit more before roasting, right? Would it be TOO salty?

I can't find anyone talking about this, so probably this is a Useless Idea, but now I kinda wanna try it.

 

Also, I will be spatchcocking again, putting aromatics in a little foil nest under the center of the bird and a ring of stuffing around the outside. This is a method I developed for myself years ago when I discovered spatchcocking of poultry generally, and as well wanted turkey drippings to still flavor the stuffing without the food-borne illness concerns of stuffing a whole bird.

Photo of me with one of my early very successful turkey attempts! 2005?

Here's 2020, spatchcocked goodness:


Video of Alton's brine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKr1rByVVCI

Written recipe:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe-1950271

* Kenji throwing down the science that supposedly proves me wrong. But you can't argue with our taste buds, Kenji!! https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-the-truth-about-brining-turkey-thanksgiving