HN Explorer

Ask HN: Was Your Turkey Dry?

66 points by itchyjunk ↗ HN
I am not sure if it's something about the turkey itself or the ways generally employed to cook them, but dry turkey seems to be a common theme of discussion among people during thanksgiving. Although, it might also be my own biases that makes me think it's a common enough issue. So I figured HN would be a reliable enough group to ask if they have run into this problem/ found their own unique solutions.

184 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 228 ms ] thread
brudgers
No. I use a recipe from an old Good Housekeeping Cookbook.

  + Put the bird in a roasting pan
  + Put foil over the roasting pan.
  + Cook at 450F
  + For the last 30 minutes, remove the foil
The standard instructions produce dry turkey because they are solely focused on food safety to reduce liability. Think about it this way, if you are using the "recipe" on the packaging, then you don't have experience cooking a turkey another way.
jimhefferon
For how long? Or to what temp?
SketchySeaBeast
They say 450, but they don't say the duration, so a lame joke would be that the turkey is never dry because they never eat it, you just put another turkey on top of the remains of whatever you've been cooking since last year.
gmfawcett
That reminds me of the "garbage can turkey" we cooked at a Scouts camp one year. "Watch the temperature of the coals," we said to our turkey minder, "keep it low and slow."... But while we were hiking, the minder kept worrying it wouldn't cook in time, and so he piled on the charcoal. A few hours later, our 50+ pound bird had been transformed into a tiny black football.

Fortunately there was a pizzeria a mile away, or it might have been Squirrel Soup on the menu that night. :)

brudgers
There's a table. It's in another comment. Looks like about 20min per lbs.
akerl_
You had me until 450F. Is this a humblebrag that you’re great at timing the precise moment to rip the turkey out of the oven? Because that’s easily 100F over what I’d consider sane for somebody to cook a whole bird, given that you’re aiming for interior temps under 200F.
brudgers
No the cookbook has a table (retyped for another comment).

Bibliography:

The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, copyright 1963, Hearst Corporation, LOC 16-15315, page 282.

akerl_
I’m kindof shocked by what you’re pitching here. The instructions for most turkeys would have you cook at either 325F or 350F for somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15 minutes per pound.

Despite what you put in a parallel comment, “low temps” aren’t what dry meats out. Jerky is dry because it’s cooked radically longer than you’d cook the equivalent meat for a dinner plate.

It’s pretty obvious rationally that cooking a turkey at a higher heat for longer is going to overcook it. That’s especially humorous given your note about how the turkey packaging is optimized for food safety: if they’re confident that 325 at 15minute/lb is enough to be safe, why the heck are you aiming for hotter/longer?

brudgers
The instructions on the packaging tend to produce a dry result. Dry turkey is safe turkey in the same way that a dry well done hamburger is recommended for food safety.

I think I understand the basic science of the approach. There are, practically speaking, three mechanisms for heat transfer. Radiation, conduction, and convection.

Scientifically, to a first approximation, all heat transfer in the universe is via radiation. It is the only form of heat transfer that can occur across a vacuum.

However, metal foils (or in this case a metalloid foil of aluminum) provide effective radiant barriers. Metal foil based radiant barriers are what made Eagle so shiny.

The foil over the bird makes heat transfer inside the oven less efficient by eliminating most of the radiant heat transfer.

However, where the foil touches the skin, it can serve as a conductor and crisp the skin relatively quickly. But that doesn't go bone deep. It is analogous to searing a steak, it helps keep the moisture in.

So that means convection does all the heavy lifting. In the beginning it is only via hot air. But as the bird heats, some of the moisture turns to steam. The steam cools as it rises when it hits meat at lower temperatures. The foil somewhat contains the steam...so a lot of the moisture does not evaporate and the effective cooking temperature is much lower than 450F.

In particular the convection cycle uses the thermal mass of the pan at the bottom. Juices flow down into it, evaporate and rise until cooled by uncooked meat above. Some of the uncooked meat liquifies and flows down along with the condensed steam.

---

But anyway, while I haven't cooked a hundred turkeys this way, I have cooked several dozen due to a period where I was eating low carb and cooking a small turkey about once a week for meat. It's worked for me a few dozen times less the few times before I used the foil method. Last Thursday's bird is among the successes.

I don't have an ideological dog in the method. The recipe produces great results with minimal additional effort (using foil, turning the oven dial a little further, and removing the foil).

I use the method because it is idiot proof. Alas as HN shows, it is not genius proof. Then again nothing is.

tclancy
I think you left out the part where the recipe says to start at 450 for 15 minutes or so (probably to kill any bacteria in case you weren’t all too careful in handling) and then turn down to 325/ 350.
brudgers
No. Instead there's foil involved.

Cooking is an empirical endeavor.

Lower temperatures tend to dry meats out, e.g. jerked meats (all things kept constant (a sous vide gives different results)).

raldi
How do you know when you've reached "the last 30 minutes"?
brudgers
The table in the cookbook gives the times:

  Lbs    hrs
  7-9    2.25-2.5
  10-13  2.75-3
  14-17  3-3.25
  18-21  3.25-3.5
  22-24  3.5-3.75
jstx1
Adam Ragusea: STOP TRYING TO MAKE TURKEY TASTE GOOD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rb2iQALiXU

tl;dw - dry turkey is to be expected and it doesn't need to be fixed, that's why you have gravy et al.

whymauri
Turkey doesn't have to be dry, but the mass-produced modern Turkey (stuff like Butterball) is guaranteed to to be dry.
dekhn
I disagree. They tend to be fairly bland, but when cooked properly, they're not dry. That's mainly because people overcook the breast.
kadoban
Yeah I think the key is "when cooked properly", which is emphatically _not_ according to the directions given with the bird.
mcphage
Turkey does taste good, though. And it absolutely doesn't have to be dry.
anthomtb
I agree. Properly brined turkey cooked to an appropriate temperature (based on the part of the bird, not the CDC) has an excellent flavor. Turkey breast, in particular, is much much more flavorful than chicken breast.
calbear81
Nope it was moist and delicious! Separated the skin from the meat and rubbed with salt and sugar. 450 for an hour then 325 until the internal temp was at 157+. Breast was foiled to prevent overcooking.
[dead] shiftoutbox
We had spare ribs with salt pepper and soy sauce. Best idea ever.
chrishynes
Nope. Spatchcock it and then it will cook evenly.
hprotagonist
If you're going to oven roast your turkey, BRINE IT FIRST.

The single best turkey i've ever had came out of a Big Green Egg hybrid smoker thing, which is kind of ungodly expensive so I don't own one, but does an excellent job at cooking thick cuts and whole birds and the like.

konfusinomicon
look on Craigslist. I got a used one for basically half price and it was the best $600 I ever spent. they last forever so used is still as good as new. once you figure it out, everything that comes out of it will be the best youve ever had.

for the turkey i did a dry brine with Tony cachere creole seasoning, injected with creole butter and basted with maple syrup.. also spatchcoked it, which isn't the most pleasant thing to experience but I won't ever keep a turkey whole again, cooked much quicker and more evenly

tclancy
The other important thing is to stuff the cavity (if you don’t have stuffing in the bird). We do lemons and rosemary. Otherwise you are steaming the thing from the inside while cooking the outside. Having water or broth below it in the pan helps too.
theandrewbailey
My family skipped the turkey and had steak instead.
whymauri
My girlfriends family made Peking Duck. I've been making mojo-marinated pernil (slow roasted pork shoulder) for years. This sandpaper Turkey thing just ain't it for me, and I'm not willing to drop $$$$ on a higher quality bird when my local butcher sells me pork on the cheap.
ajmurmann
Duck and goose don't get enough attention in the US. For both of those the baseline is much higher than for a turkey and so is the ceiling of deliciousness.
dekhn
I actually think of turkey as the quintessential poultry of the americas. Turkey with mole sauce has been around for a loooooong time. As an aside I'm still blown away by Mexico City being a drained floodplain previously called Tenochtitlan. There's something deep time about ancient america.
Larrikin
I'd love to try cooking a goose, but I've never seen one for under fifty bucks in the grocery store. The specialty stores like whole foods carry them year round so they're expected to be over priced there, but even the middle tier nearby store sells them for almost 90 dollars at Christmas time. Duck you can atleast find at a reasonable price if you know where to look.
tzs
I too had steak. An almost 1 pound thick New York steak cooked as described by Alton Brown in the Good Eats Reloaded episode on steak.

I bought it a day before eating it. It spent that day sitting on a rack covered in the fridge, starting with a good amount of kosher salt on the up side. After about 12 hours of that I flipped it, salted the new up side, and it went back into the fridge.

When it was time to cook it, a thermometer went into the center of the steak, and the steak went into a 200 ℉ oven until the thermometer read 120 ℉ (it took somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes).

When it came out of the oven it rested while I heated a frying pan to the highest my stove can get it to (somewhere in the 500-550 ℉ range). The steak then went into the pan for 45 seconds, got flipped, and spent another 45 seconds there, then to my plate.

After coming out of the oven it went into a frying pan that was as hot as my stove could get it (about 500 ℉) for 45 seconds, got flipped, spent 45 seconds on the other side, and then onto my plate.

That method gives me perfect steaks evenly cooked throughout every time. The only downside was I couldn't pair the steak with something else that also needed the oven unless that too only needed 200 ℉. The main casualty was baked frozen french fries which want 425 ℉. But recently my toaster died and I replaced it with a small toaster oven, and that can do fries so steak and fries are back on the menu.

gwbas1c
I'm glad you posted that. I think it's really important that people eat / cook what they want, even if it's not a turkey.

(That being said, I really enjoyed cooking my turkey. It's a lot of fun if you like that kind of thing, but it's significantly more work, and more challenging, than just throwing steaks on the grill!)

vnchr
Brining poultry is an easy practice to increase flavor and decrease drying risk. Soak the bird overnight in a gallon of water with half a cup of sugar, half a cup of salt, and some herbs/spices.
chomp
Nope. Dry brined my turkey 2 days in advance, which let the salt break down the stringy fibers in the breast, and let the turkey retain more water. Then put it in a wire stand and smoked it vertically (same orientation as beer can chicken but with a wire stand.)

The thighs took the brunt of the abuse from the heat source, and the vertical temp gradient in the smoker (and the orientation of the breast) ensured that the white meat cooked slowly and gently. The canal allowed its own updraft of hot air also, which cooked the turkey inside and out and let me pull it without having to wait for the “cavern of cold” to heat up. There was also no evaporative cooling in the vertical position like there is in the horizontal (usually a pool of liquid forms in the canal which causes me to have to really abuse the turkey with heat to cook it through. Not so in the vertical position.)

Pulled it with the breast at ~155 and thighs at ~167. Best turkey I’ve ever done.

igetspam
After one of my two turkeys was taken by a predator, we rehomed her sister because she was lonely and becoming aggressive with th hens. Because of that, we didn't have our traditional "turkey day" but they sent photos and she's doing quite well. She didn't get the same spread as last year but at least she has a companion. As there was a little rain over the last couple days, I'm sure she's at least a little damp.
akavi
Nope. Instead of roast turkey, my (Indian-American) family makes a turkey meatball curry. Cultural fusion at its most delicious, and guaranteed never dry.
selimthegrim
I hear tandoori turkey is a thing these days
dekhn
I find turkey meatballs to be fairly bland on their own (compared to beef/veal/pork ones). What do you use for seasoning the meatball? I've used garam masala in the sauce but I'm curious what goes on the inside of the ball.
vertnerd
Ours was moist and yummy. I followed the directions on the wrapper.
Trisell
I found this recipe a few years ago and it’s my go to. The brine is the key. Also not cooking a turkey to 180. Everybody I feed it to is shocked by how moist the turkey is. Also the gravy in this recipe is the best hands down I’ve ever had. I actually make turkey a few times year because of this recipe.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/brined-herb...

mohaine
There is no reason for dry turkey. It is all about cooking temperature, especially with the white meat.

You really want to make sure the white meat never gets above 145 F ish. The easiest way to do this is with sous vide but you can it other ways if you follow the process correctly. With sous vide it is basically impossible to mess up.

My Process:

  1) Carve raw turkey in to major pieces like you would a chicken.
  2) Place white breast meat in one plastic bag.  Dark in a second bag
  3) Add some salt/pepper or other spices to bag, along with some butter or fat/oil.  
  4) Remove air from bags as best you can
  5) Sous vide at 145 F for 3 hours
  6) Remove white meat bag from water, Raise temp to 165 for 2 more hours
  7) At this point meat it done and can be refrigerated for a day or two. 
  8) Remove meat from bag, put in large dish under broiler until skin is crisp.
I've been following this process for years and it just works.
jm547ster
If you want this same process to work with all the meat being ready at once, flip the temps around: Cook dark meat at 165 for 3 hours -> drop temp to 145 F (ice to hurry it) Drop in your white meat for 2 hours - remove all and crisp
n8cpdx
Probably produces great meat, but does directly contradict USDA guidelines. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and...

At least in chicken, multi-drug resistant salmonella is still a problem that kills people in the US. The government’s approach to food safety assumes you will follow the guidelines and cook to 165 while religiously following anti-cross-contamination measures, rather than actually pursuing food safety. Maybe turkey is the exception, but I have my doubts.

https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2021/10/americas-food-safe...

Spinnaker_
Food safety is about temperature and time. Not just temperature. When you see a temperature like 165 it means that the moment the meat hits that temperature it is safe. You can lower the max temperature as long as you increase the time the meat is held there. Chicken at 136 degrees for 70 minutes is just as safe as momentarily reaching 165 degrees.

A nice overview: https://blog.thermoworks.com/chicken/thermal-tips-simple-roa...

mcot2
Correct, was just going to post this. This is why sous vide is so fantastic.
OJFord
That's not entirely generalisable though, e.g. not in the limit 'room temperature forever'; there is also a temperature you just plain have to get to (depending what you're trying to kill) no matter how long you hold it.
zamfi
Yes but this is perhaps overly pedantic.

No one would legitimately try to cook a chicken by keeping it at room temperature forever, you still want cooked meat — it’s just that 165 overcooks it. For breast meat, you typically want 150, and you can hold it there for enough to kill salmonella.

OJFord
Yes I'm only taking it to the limit of zero heating and infinite time to make the point obvious, but what's room temperature (I don't know Fahrenheit) 90F or something - call it that, point is that just the act of heating it at all, doesn't magically kill (e.g.) salmonella. Wikipedia lists 131F for 90min as being sufficient - that doesn't necessarily mean it's possible at all at 120F, however long you leave it.
prpl
the lower bound is around 130-136 - the temps where bacteria start to die. The absolute lower end is roughly where they don’t multiply.
n8cpdx
I wish I could edit my comment to acknowledge this. TIL. Without that specific knowledge, it sounded like a recipe for disaster - slosh around a bunch of random meat in juices, incubate at moderate heat for hours, stir it up with grubby fingers, and then only cook some of it to safe temperature.

In my own life, my struggle is with loved ones who recklessly disregard basic safety advice, so I’m overly on guard for it. E.g. not wearing seatbelts level of recklessness (I really wish I was making that up), in addition to not bothering with the meat thermometer at all.

moron4hire
You're probably more likely to get salmonella from dirty produce than undercooked poultry.
[dead] obiwan14
If you have to do all that to not get turkey meat that's dry, then one has to assume that turkey meat, cooked like you would cook any other meat, like chicken, is dry, as has been my experience.

To sum, turkey meat is dry. Don't want dry turkey meat, follow these steps...

saryant
I’ve done a version of this the last few years.

1) Break bird into parts. Thighs, breasts, tenderloins and “everything else” each into their own bag.

2) Butterfly the breasts and lay them over the skin. Rub with salt, butter and whatever herbs you like. Roll breasts and skin up into a roulade. Refrigerate for 2 days.

3) Sous vide breast roulade at 140 for 4-5 hours then deep fry.

4) Separately, braise the legs/thighs in red wine and mirepoix.

5) Use the bones/gizzards to make gravy.

6) Toss the tenderloins in the freezer for another day.

Ideas courtesy of Serious Eats. Works very well but does require a lot of upfront work. The results are worth it though.

BenoitEssiambre
Note that 145 will make dark meat taste kinda raw so don't try this temperature on a whole bird.

155 to 160 can be kindof a trade-off if you want to do the whole bird. Government guidelines are 165 minimum but when going over 160, white meat starts to get noticeably dry. Still, if you really want to follow government guidelines, sous vide to 165 and not one degree more is not that bad compared to oven until center is 165 which puts outer meat at like 180 or more and clearly overcooked.

bpicolo
The 165 guideline is for instantaneous heat. With sous-vide, you pasteurize to the same degree with lower heat for a longer time.
__mharrison__
I did 145 for white (5 hours) and dark (overnight). I didn't think it was undercooked at all. I just wish the birds had more dark meat and less white.
gcheong
Generally speaking a heritage or wild turkey will tend to have more dark meat in proportion to breast meat than your typical store-bought bird.
gwbas1c
FYI: My meat thermometer got right up to 170 when I took the turkey out. It was perfect.
netcraft
No, and I didnt brine either. I cooked three turkeys sous-vide (which is a terrible name) at 147F - 150F for a few hours and they came out perfectly tender and juicy. even after multiple reheats. The downside is that the fat and skin doesnt render, so you either have to give up on that or do another process to get it - a broiler does the job though.
randywaterhouse
Deep fried at 350F for just over an hour. Bird was ~17lbs. Pulled with the thickest part of the breast at 155F (other parts were hotter).

Did pseudo "dry brine" by salting it lightly 48h before it's molten bath. Came out juicy and, more importantly for the skin lovers, crackly.

dekhn
Yes, although I didn't cook it (somebody else deep fried it). When I cook poultry I always get comments about how moist, yet fully cooked the meat is (both breast and thigh).

My tricks: spatchcock, aluminum foil on the breast, temp probe, and pulling it before it reaches target temp. Most people are overcooking their turkey (typically the breast) so that the thighs are fully done. Spatchcock fixes the surface area to volume ratio, the foil addresses the differential cooking of breast and thigh, and the temp probe ensures you're not under or overcooking.

I've never brined a turkey, but my guess is that's the last step to perfection.

ndm000
I’ve also found that when not spatchcocking, I have to make sure to tie the legs together. Doing so keeps the juices inside and keeps it really moist.
op00to
Ours seemed perfectly moist and everyone enjoyed it, but I do not eat turkey so I can’t give first hand knowledge.
fredleblanc
Nope.

For preparation, put it on a chicken roasting pan, and "painted" it with melted butter. Sprinkled on some salt, pepper, fresh sage that grows in our yard, rosemary, and some garlic powder. I stuffed lemons and onion pieces in the middle.

I used an always-in thermometer in the thigh. Baked it at 325°F with the foil on until the thigh hit 135°F — about 3 hours for our 13-pound bird — then removed foil, drizzled a bit of an olive oil/garlic powder/salt mix over the top, and then let it continue to bake until the thigh hit 165°F. At that point the breast was 175°F.

Took it out and let it set for about 45 minutes before carving. I think that's the important part. Juices thicken and settle in the meat instead of running everywhere.

I think the two key things was constant temperature monitor (over-cooking means dry) and letting it set (early-cutting loses juices).

jameshart
Yes, this. All the sous-vide and spatchcocking and brining zealots are overthinking it. Roast the turkey, in an oven, until it’s cooked.
criddell
I did sous vide but I didn't choose that due to any kind of overthinking. It's just the easiest, most idiot proof way for me. I started our turkey at 2 which meant we could eat anytime after 4:30. If we wanted to eat at 5 or 6 or 7, we could.
jameshart
Presumably at some point in the past this required you to have had the foresight to acquire a sous-vide cooking system that was large enough to cook a turkey. That doesn’t strike me as the sort of thing one does without putting some thought into it.
criddell
Well, first I had to acquire a house so I would have a shipping address that the $100 device could be shipped to.

Sous vide machines are cheap. I've had mine for more than a decade now and use it all the time for the flexibility and ease of getting pretty great results.

If you don't want to buy a dedicated device, you can get buy with a big pot of water on a burner.

If you are a DIY kind of person, you can make one for less than $50.

sosborn
If it works for you, great, but to me, 175 at the breast is insanity.
manishsharan
I sous vide my turkey as I am a man of science :-)
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
canadian_tired
Canadian here, so I had my turkey fix earlier this fall. And it was not dry. What is "dry" anyway? For meat: Mostly the lack of water and fat. Water and fat provide flavor and improve texture...so without them, turkey is basically poultry leather. We want hot, juicy, tasty turkey, right? I tried "wet brining" which for me, sucks. That's it. And Yeah...it was a juicy turkey...but watery mush juicy. If soft, pillowy, flavorless turkey is your goal, go for it. For me? Nope. (read up on what Kenji Lopez-Alt has to say...he is spot on!) Dry brine is much better. Anyhow, my method is simple: Slow, longer cook... 300F.. in a Big Green Egg. I usually go until it is 140F or so inside and hold it there for 20 min or so. This does take a few hours, but it works every time. Always delish. Most dry birds are overcooked. People start the oven at 450, toss the bird in, and leave it until the inside is 180. If I am doing it inside? Spatchcock or otherwise break the bird down for more even cooking... and then in a slowish oven.
msandford
Haven't seen any advice similar to what I did. Recently came into a convection oven so used that on a 14lb bird, unstuffed. Basically zero prep, coated with olive oil and chopped herbs. Un-trussed and baked uncovered at 325 convection. Put BBQ remote temperature probes into breast and thigh. Saw that the thigh wasn't getting warmer as desired so we flipped the bird from breast-up to thighs/legs up at around 130f. Pulled it at 165f in the breast, 172f in the thigh (many would say too hot) and let it sit for ~20min. It was still nice and moist to the point it was kind of difficult to slice the white meat.

BBQ thermometers can take nearly all the guesswork out as you can get continuous temperature measurements. Use them no matter your target temp or technique.

lokl
No, I steam mine. For 22 lb, 2:10 at 400 °F on a rack above water in a foil-sealed tray. Cooks fast, difficult to dry out if you overcook it. I remove the skin first, cover in an herb-olive oil paste. If you want crispy skin, I suppose you could cook it separately (cracklings).