Its my first Thanksgiving, can you help with the Turkey, please?!
Answers: I have a 22.5 lbs turkey, we have a bunch of people coming over. I want to stuff it and I want to cover it for half of its cooking time to help it stay moist. I have a meat therometer and I know the bird and the stuffing should reach 165. My question is how long do you think it will take the bird to cook? I am trying to plan the day and would love an accurate estimate. Any help would be appreciated, this my husband and my first Thanksgiving. Thanks!
The "rule of thumb" for roasting a turkey is 20 minutes per pound and add an additional 20 - 30 minutes to your total. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and when you place the turkey in, turn it down to 325 - 350. If stuffing the turkey, stuff it loosely, if you pack it in then you will need additional cooking time. Another way of checking if the bird is done is by wiggling the leg/drumstick, if it moves freely, the bird is done. For a well browned bird, brush it with melted butter, sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper and roast for about 1 hour, check it, baste it and if not browned to desired color let it go another hour etc, once it is browned the way you want, cover it loosely with tin foil and finish cooking. It is ideal to place the turkey on a rack so it doesn't boil in it's juices. For the moistest turkey EVER, place the bird breast down, you will sacrifice the color and crisp skin, but the flavor and moistness cannot be beat. This method allows the juices, flavor of the dark meat to permeate the breast. Remember that after the turkey is cooked, you must allow it to rest outside of the oven for 30 minutes. I hope this has helped, I have been roasting turkeys for Thanksgivings, Xmas and Easter for 40 plus years and the above methods have never failed.
There is so much in preparations and such.
I have found the following site to be helpful. It goes over cooking, carving, etc...
COOKS Illustrated.com
Here is there link:
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/microsit...
GOOD LUCK and happy Thanksgiving
: - )
At 20 minutes per pound (turkey) then your turkey will need to cook right at 6 to 7 hours. Now the problem is 'stuffing' your bird. Your turkey is going to be finished cooking BEFORE the stuffing, therefore chancing a dry turkey. If you do not want to take this chance, then cook your stuffing in a separate pan, if you really want, (for presentation) you can always stuff your bird AFTER it and the stuffing is cooked..Good Luck and Happy Thanksgiving.
around twenty minutes per pound... so that will be around 7 1/2 hours.
4 3/4 to 5 1/4 hours. See this page for further help:
http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC3...