Can I inject a turkey a day in advance?

[Highlandgriller]

A jolly good morning to you all from the misty UK. Can I please ask for a little advice? I am planning to spice up our usually rather dull British Christmas turkey by cooking Rus Jones' cajun turkey in my PBC. Probably a bit risky as I have not done a turkey on it before and I will have a baying crowd of hungry family waiting to devour the result. BUT my question is; can I inject the bird the day before? I am concerned that as the injection will be hot/warm it will start to heat the bird which will then cool again and be cooked a day later. Is this a problem? Thanks for any help. HG

[DWCowles]

Welcome Highlandgriller I know this isn't the answer you're looking for but I would wait and inject the bird right before putting it in the cooker.

[Nate]

Welcome from Indiana.

[lschweig]

IMHO if the turkey is cold and the injection is at room temp you should not have a problem. I would not inject if the injection was hot in any case.

[lschweig]

I would expose the skin in the fridge at least 1-2 days to help dry it out, which will help to produce a crispy skin.

[FireMan]

I don't know, can you?

Just thinkin out loud.

[Highlandgriller]

Thanks for the replies everyone. The recipe for the injection says you have melt a load of butter into it so I think it will warm if not hot. I don't want to poison the family, although on second thoughts a bit of targetted poisoning may not be the end of the world...

[PaulstheRibList]

lolol

[lschweig]

Why not inject it right before you are ready to put it in? On another thought if the turkey is cold the butter should solidify pretty quickly inside so there should not be any danger.

I believe fzxdoc injects with butter, but I don't know when.

[Highlandgriller]

I was keen to inject it in advance for two main reasons. Firstly I thought it would help with dispersing the flavours within the meat but also I have four children so expect to be otherwise engaged early on Christmas morning.

I don't think I will risk it and will inject it on the day.

Happy Christmas one and all.

[fzxdoc]

I inject with melted butter--not too hot but warm enough to get it through the syringe into the bird. I don't think it would harm anything to inject a day ahead of time. After all, Butterball turkeys come out of the wrapping already injected.

Kathryn

[FireMan]

I just thought of something else. If you injected a turkey a day before the 25th, you would have a lot of turkeys to cook. Looks like we will all have to come over & help eat them.

[gcdmd]

I regularly inject our Thanksgiving turkeys with warm truffle or garlic butter the night before and then refrigerate. There has never been a problem.

[Spinaker]

You can inject the night before with no problem. Just make sure, as Kathryn said, the butter is warm not hot. I wouldn't worry about doing it in the PBC. That sucker can crank it out with no problem at all. Good luck on your cook man! Send us some pictures of the prep and finished cook!

[tbob4]

If you want to hear the argument about it in my house it is as follows: My wife "Do NOT inject that thing the day before. You are taking surface bacteria and pushing it into the meat, giving it 24 hours to do it's thing." I put the turkey back in the fridge or she won't leave the room. I wait for her to go to the store. I then pull the turkey and injector back out. I say to the Ridgebacks who see and know everything when it comes to cooking - "You better not tell mom what I'm doing or you are getting no scraps tomorrow. I swear. It's dry food and I won't even let you sniff around the doors of the BBQ." Haven't gotten sick yet. The turkey sometimes gets injected twice. The day before with the real stuff and on the day of with a placebo just so the wife doesn't catch on. I even hide what I do in my homemade recipe book. I'm sure she's right about the potential worries. I stopped putting stuffing in the bird because Meathead said the same thing she did about low and slow and stuffing.

[Northside Brian]

Highlandgriller I did Russ's cajun turkey for thanksgiving and I will say it was totally devoured by everyone. I did inject the night before thinking i would save some time the next day. When I woke up in the morning I discovered that much of the liquid had leaked out of the bird and was sitting in the pan and not the turkey. The reason for this i figured was that most of the injection was liquid (i.e. water and not melted butter) and did not solidify once it cooled off. The turkey in injected with nothing but butter had no liquid in the pan.

[fuzzydaddy]

Welcome Highlandgriller! We'd love to get an intro from you over in the Introduce Yourself channel when you get a minute. Thanks!