Turkey time

As the best holiday of the year rapidly approaches its time to smoke my first turkey.

I am using a simple apple juice based brine for the next 24 hours and will then air dry the bird in the refrigerator 24 hours prior to it being ready to be cooked.

The brine I made consisted of the following, apple Juice (2 Qt's) Water (3 Qt's), 1 cup of kosher salt, 2 pounds of brown sugar (1 lb of light and 1 lb of dark) 1 Tbs of ground cumin, 1 Tbs of ground Clove, 3 Oranges and about 7 cloves of garlic smashed.

Almost ready, time to let it cool to room temperature before using.

Instead of using a bucket or food grade container, I just used a turkey bag and used a trash bag as a back up and put both inside a cooler to keep in the refrigerator.

Time to add the brine and other ingredients

Sealed up tight, ready to put in the fridge, I also added a few cups of ice.

now I just need to be patient...