A home cook shares their experience with a surprisingly fast-cooking 6.6-kilogram turkey, questioning whether dry brining or another factor accelerated the process. After following a trusted recipe and cooking guide, the bird reached nearly 190°F in just over two hours at 350°F—far sooner than the expected four hours and forty minutes. The turkey was dry-brined for nearly two days in the fridge before roasting, then allowed to sit at room temperature before cooking, leaving the user curious if the technique or other variables played a role. Readers discuss whether the method truly speeds up cooking or if other conditions contributed to the unexpected result.
Had my friendsgiving this weekend, everything turned out great! I bought a 6.6kg turkey. According to https://www.canadianturkey.ca/en/all-about-turkey/turkey-cooking-guides/roasting-a-whole-turkey/, stuffed it should have taken 4hrs 40m. I have used this site's cooking times, and this dry brining technique (https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-dry-brine-a-turkey-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-212426) for years now and I'm always surprised by how fast the turkey cooks. This weekend I checked at about 2hr45m and the turkey was at almost 190F, so ideally I would have taken it out a bit sooner. Main question: Does the dry brine make it so the turkey cooks faster? Or is there something else going on? I didn't weigh the turkey myself so I am trusting that it was actually 6.6kgs. And before you ask, I do have a thermometer in my oven and it was at 350F. Frozen turkey, put in the fridge to defrost on sunday. Took it out Thursday evening to put the dry brine mix on (3:1 course salt:baking powder if you don't want to click the recipe link, and some thyme). So it was brining naked (uncovered) in the fridge for about 44 hours before I threw it in the oven. I let it sit on the counter about 40m-1hr while I made the stuffing, so it would come up to room temp. submitted by /u/spectrometric [link] [comments]
