Cathy2 wrote:20 pound turkey and 2 gallons of brining liquid, I hope it is a pretty big bag.

Well, you don't need 2 gallons of brining liquid. You just need enough to surround the turkey. So any food-safe bag that the turkey fits into should work.

But $6.99 seems pretty expensive for a one-time use bag.

Considering how cheaply one can buy a perfectly adequate big stainless steel stockpot in, say, an Asian cooking store ($20-30, surely), $6.99 a bag is not just expensive, it's irresponsible. I stick mine in my biggest stockpot, make the brine around it, stick the whole thing on the bottom shelf of the "beer" fridge (before I had one, I was known to simply set it outside, weather permitting) and it all works great.

Mike G wrote:I stick mine in my biggest stockpot, make the brine around it, stick the whole thing on the bottom shelf of the "beer" fridge (before I had one, I was known to simply set it outside, weather permitting) and it all works great.

If I don't have room in the fridge, I stick the brining container in a picnic cooler. The last time I had a turkey too big for the pot that fits in the cooler and no room in the fridge, I improvised with an oven-roasting bag (about $3 per box of 5) inside a trash bag, as mentioned upthread. I poured the brine around the bird, closed the whole thing with a twist-tie and then added ice and water to the cooler around the outside of the bag so the whole thing was submerged. It worked great.

The other thing you can do if you can't refrigerate is to put the turkey in the brine in the pot or a smallish cooler and add sealed bags of ice.

I actually just ran into a major dilemna this past weekend, when I was knee deep in a 13lb pastrami brine and uncertain about a vessel to store it in for a week in the fridge.

Ended up at Northwest Cutlery where I grabbed a 22qt food storage container and lid. Fit the 2.5 gallons of brine and packer brisket quite well, though did have to take a shelf out of my fridge.

Did cringe a bit when I got home and discovered the > 50% price difference here:
http://www.acemart.com/merchant.mv?Scre ... de=G11-2-4

Should be able to brine anything short of a whole hog in this thing

Jamie

Jamieson22 wrote:Did cringe a bit when I got home and discovered the > 50% price difference here:
http://www.acemart.com/merchant.mv?Scre ... de=G11-2-4

But at least you got the satisfaction of helping to keep a local independent business around! Which reminds me, my knives have been begging for a CTA-chauffered trip to Northwestern for a month now...



Kristen