Deep Fried Turkey

Last weekend I made a deep fried turkey. All agreed it was a very easy way to make turkey. It only took an hour and there was no mess. The other good thing was that the oven was free for sides.

I bought a garden variety 15 pound turkey from Fareway. I brined it according to Easy E's instructions - 1 pound of salt, 1 pound brown sugar, 6 quarts of water, 5 pounds of ice.

You have to be extremely careful when frying a turkey. There are all kinds of youtube videos of turkey fryers catching fire and burning houses down. I heated the oil to 250 instead of 350 before dropping the turkey in.
I also made darn sure the turkey was dry and the flame was off before dropping in the turkey. What can happen is the water on the turkey will hit the oil and the oil will bubble over the side of the pot. If a flame is going you have a massive fire!

It is also extremely important to keep everyone who is not the turkey cook AWAY from the fryer. We occupied our little one with a new big wheel from her uncle.
Daisy was good and stayed out of the way because she doesn't like fire.


The turkey fried about 45 minutes. I let it reach an internal temperature of 151 in the breast meat.
The oil temperature never got about 325. When it was done we had a very tasty and juicy turkey.
The final thing to do is let the oil cool to room temperature. It is reusable at least once if you run it through a filter.