Thaw, you little bastard! THAW!

December 24, 2005 8:16 AM

We screwed up the timing for preparing our turkey. How can we thaw and brine by tomorrow without risking bacterial contamination?

I took the 4.8 kg (10 pound) turkey out of the freezer Friday morning and put it in the fridge to thaw. According to all the charts I've seen, 8-12 pound turkeys take 1-2 days to fully thaw that way.

But my husband would like to brine, which means the turkey has to be thawed by tonight so we can brine it overnight and roast tomorrow. That 1-2 days for fridge thawing now seems to be cutting things a little fine, especially as it's been more than 24 hours and the thing still feels damn solid on the outside.

Cold water thawing outside the fridge is a little riskier, even if you change the water every thirty minutes. Anyway, we've been told that turkey should be cooked immediately after cold water thawing. Brining for 12 hours, even in the fridge, seems verboten.

For now, my husband has stuck the turkey in the fridge (somewhere between 30 and 40 degrees F) in a stockpot full of cold water. Should we reasonably expect this to be faster than air-thawing in the fridge?

posted by maudlin to food & drink (11 comments total)

The fastest safe thawing method I know of is in cold running water. Water is tremendously more capable of conducting heat than air (which is why being in cold water will give you hypothermia a jillion times faster than cold air).

I leave the turkey in one bay of my two-bay sink and let the water stream. IANAFoodSafetyExpert so YMMV but I've done it for years with no ill effects, including several times when I've thawed it out most of the way and popped it back in the fridge to await its delicious demise.

I would say thaw it out most of the way, put it in the brine and put it in the fridge. It will finish thawing as it brines.

By the way: Glad's new huge Ziploc bags are the bees' knees for brining turkeys -- you can get complete coverage with a couple quarts of liquid as long as you suck the air out before you seal it.
posted by sacre_bleu at 9:07 AM on December 24, 2005

Maudlin, there is no appreciable difference between having it in the fridge in water or just air-thawing it. It may be that salmonella etc., is a bigger problem for you but over here I would thaw it outside the fridge, then brine it. The most important thing is that you give it enough cooking time. If thawing outside the fridge makes you nervous give it an extra half hour cooking. Enjoy it anyway! best of luck
posted by Wilder at 9:09 AM on December 24, 2005

As you've figured out for yourself, there is no way you're going to manage this if you insist on sticking exactly to all the official food safety guidelines. You'll just have to forget about brining it.

However, plenty of people thaw things in a variety of slightly unsafe ways, and seem just fine. This Google Answers thread has some anecdotal evidence as well as some professional advice.

The point is, you're going to be cooking this thing for hours, as well as washing it and soaking it in salt overnight. The only substantial danger would be if you left it at room temperature for, like, a day or something.

In the overall balance of things, I don't think you'd be risking much if you just thawed it out for 5 hours in cold water, then returned it to the fridge to do your brining thing. Yes, it's not officially recommended, but it seems like the added risk is pretty minimal.
posted by chrismear at 9:10 AM on December 24, 2005

I seem to remember a Cook's Magazine article that mentioned that brining for more than 8 hours was a waste of time and that prolonged brining could lead to sogginess. I always aim for about 8 hours brine time, so depending on when you're going to start cooking it, this could increase your thaw time.
posted by chocolatepeanutbuttercup at 9:48 AM on December 24, 2005

For the past five years, for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, I have thaw-brined my turkeys. I use a large (150 qt) cooler filled 3/4 with cold water. I mix the appropriate amount of salt and sugar in and squeeze several lemons into the mix.

I will leave the turkey in there for a day, which thaws it completely. About 12 hours in, I'll add a bag of ice.

No-one in my family has gotten ill eating these.
posted by tomierna at 10:04 AM on December 24, 2005

I often brine birds that are still partly frozen (mostly chickens, but still...). Brining (or soaking in cold water as you're doing) will help move the thawing along, b/c the water will reach in where the bird is still coldest--inside. The other reason to brine in this situation is that it will help keep the meat moist, and you're going to want to over-cook it--I can tell.

IAalsoNAFoodsafety expert, but if I were you, I'd keep changing the water the bird is in, using cool water, and keep re-fridging it. Then I'd brine, with cool but not really cold brine (8 hours seems long). If the frozen meat is below freezing, and you keep running above-freezing water over it, it's going to help. I would worry about letting any part of the bird get warmer than warm fridge temp and stay there--then you've got a germ factory.

Now, I'm about to cook a duck in a clay roaster for the first time. It's thawed. Any tips?
posted by Mngo at 10:07 AM on December 24, 2005

I use a large (150 qt) cooler filled 3/4 with cold water.

Holy crap, that's huge. You really need something like 30 gallons of water for just one turkey? How big is that turkey? How many people are you feeding?
posted by warhol at 12:14 PM on December 24, 2005

I would think that a combination brining/thawing operation outside of the refrigerator should be safe, but keep an eye on the temperature of the brining solution. Given that the turkey if frozen it should keep the solution near freezing (perhaps below 32 F given the brine) as the turkey thaws. Once it is thawed the temperature of the brine will start to rise and then it goes into the fridge or you start adding ice. This assumes you mix the fluid around every so often to prevent any local warm spots. I am no food scientist, so take this as just an off the cuff observation of what should happen.
posted by caddis at 3:55 PM on December 24, 2005

Maudlin, there is no appreciable difference between having it in the fridge in water or just air-thawing it.

That's what my grandmother thought, too. No reputable food-safety expert would endorse that statement today. Indeed, even water-thawing can be risky.

If thawing outside the fridge makes you nervous give it an extra half hour cooking.

The important point is the temperature inside the turkey. Always use a meat thermometer. Extra cooking time may make the outside crisp but fail to cook the interior, if it was incompletely thawed.
posted by dhartung at 11:35 PM on December 24, 2005

dhartung—that report details the use of three raw eggs placed in stuffing cooked inside the turkey and immediately served from the turkey. This outbreak was almost certainly caused by the stuffing, and not the method for thawing.

I do concur that inside-the-bird temperature is the most critical, and the report supports that claim, along with the most important advice: Don't cook your damn stuffing in the bird, especially if it contains raw eggs!

Sorry... that just seems like it's patently asking for trouble.
posted by disillusioned at 12:17 AM on December 25, 2005

warhol:

I bought the 150qt cooler to brine three turkeys one year. I've done two turkeys each time in following years, and this year I did one turkey in a small styrofoam cooler.

If I had to do one turkey in that cooler, I'd probably only fill it to cover the turkey, and my thaw/brine time would be reduced because of the water volume.
posted by tomierna at 1:58 PM on December 27, 2005