turkey ? brine?

hi guys - i checked the archives and could not find anything on this topic. anybody ever used a cooler - ours are igloos with tight seals - to thaw and brine a turkey?? OK - being a food poisoning phobe, know it would have to be disinfected before and after - good old bleach - BUT - anybody done this? we do not have a large enough pot to do it conventially. the better half had this idea. situation: we are going to be on road for 21/2 days down to clearwater (fl) and want to defrost and brine the turkey on the way - we'e talking christmas here, not thanksgiving. my idea is to get a fresh free range turkey, freeze it at home, and defrost on the way. any ideas guys?? can we use one of the coolers as a brine/defrost tank? any ideas would help. thanks, irene

[Sharon Herman]

I've never done it, but you could put a brand new plastic garbage bag in as a liner to eliminate the germ issue.

[Nancy]

Not wanting to take up space in my fridg I alway defrost my turkey in a cooler. It takes a couple of days it seems. Never put a thermometer in there to see what happens, maybe I'll do that next time.

How do you make your brine? Is it part of a traditional way for you to cook a turkey?

I'll bet if you put a frozen turkey in a cooler in Michigan it will still be partially frozen when you get to Florida, or at least still be cool. If it does defrost you could just throw ice cubes in there.

Nancy in northern Minnesota.

hi nancy - i have never brined a turkey before - and i am a senior! supposed to make them more moist? i was going to use recipe out of newspaper. thanks for info guys - irene

[Elsie G.]

So, Could you maybe share the recipe? I'm always into good food, and turkey is a fav.

hi elsie - here is the recipe:
day before cooking: one sm onion, diced; one stalk celery and medium carrot ditto; 3 cloves garlic sliced; 3 bay leaves; 1 T black peppercorns; 3 sprigs each sage rosemary and thyme; 6 sprigs ital. parsley; 1/2 cup ipdized salt; 3 gal. cold water. combine all above. put turkey in a very lg. pot or bucket, pour brine over it to submerge, refrig for 12-24 hrs. remove turkey - pat down, discard brine.
BUT elsie - the day after i posted this, the pilot comes home with a 12# 'fresh' (super chilled) turkey and we 'brined' it. we could not tell any difference between brined and conventional way of cooking. so - my 2 cents - waste of time.
irene

[Tom Trostel]

Also, the recipes I've seen for soaking turkeys in brine caution not to use self-basting turkey. The butter and salt have the same effect as the brine method, so it's a waste of time. Tom Trostel