DH and BIL got free 12-14 lb turkeys from their work -Yippee!! 
It's from a turkey farm about 50 miles away. As we're having 12 for dinner I asked BIL to see if they could combine coupons to upgrade to a larger turkey. DH just calls to tell me that BIL picked up a 28 lb. turkey!!! 
I have no idea what to do with a turkey that large! I had planned to brine in a 5 gal. bucket, but i'm not sure it will fit in there. This is the first year I have to do the turkey and now I'm freaking out! It's gonna take forever to cook! And now I have to find a real roasting pan (not the foil one i bought!) Any suggestions? Help please!
you could always fry the turkey (sounds weird I know) but it is delicious....the turkey fryers are about 25 bux at Wal-Mart and it cooks quickly...a 30# turkey would fry up in 2 hours, and you do it outside so the oven is free for all the other stuff you need to bake.
yes frying the turkey is great. we do that for Christmas. You can put the turkey in the oven the ngih=t before and cook it over night. I am cooking a 14lb and a 17lb turkey and a 11 lb ham the turkeys will cook over night. the biggest one is going in out roaster we got at walmart for 25 bucks. its says you can bake a cake in it but dont think i will try that. lol when i roast my turkeys over night i get up every 2 or 3 hours to baste them and they are always done with enough time left for me to bake everything else i need to get in the oven sweet potatoes and such. and they are extra juicy.
I did a 28 pounder in a turkey roasting pan I got from Bed, Bath & Beyond last year. They had STACKS of these pans, the box says up to 30 pounds. Cheap too--only like $15 or something, if I recall. Yeah, 28 pounds is one big bird! I remember being almost embarrassed by the size of his drumsticks--it was obscene! But we had enough turkey to go around--and 36 people were here! Good luck!
mmmmmmmmmmmm fried turkeys are wonderful!! We usually do this every year .. we inject them first the night before to let them marinate and then fry the next morning. They are wonderful too!! However, this year, we're doing a smoked turkey instead... we wanted to try something different...
and WOW !! A 28 pound turkey is huge!! I wonder if one of those big roaster pots from WalMart would hold one like that? Good luck with it and let us know how it turns out .. I'm sure it'll taste wonderful!!
My hubby works with a fellow who also has a farm. We buy all of our meat from him and he recently got into turkeys as well. We thought great, we'll order one. Well, he had them dressed and cleaned and the smallest one is 30 lbs!!! I know I have 3 ravenous 2 1/2 yr olds, but 30 lbs??? Yikes! So then my hubby asked if we could cook it and I could make a bunch of other stuff out of it...sure, if you wanna eat turkey every nite for the net 6 months!!! 
Wow, I don't know what to say! you are all so helpful! Soaking in an ice chest sounds like a great idea.
I'm curious about the turkey fryers - DH had joked that we should get two turkeys - bake one and fry the others. If a 28 lb turkey cooks that fast and frees up my oven, it sounds like a great idea! I live over an hour from the nearest Walmart/Target/Sears/LinensNThings and not sure if i have time to go there between now and then. :'( We have a cheesy Kmart about half hour away - they must sell large roasters and/or turkey fryers.
How do you use the fryers? HOw much/what kind of oil? Do you ever have a fire? I'm afraid my house would burn down. DH's truck exploded in the driveway a few years back and the building his store was in burned down also - so I'm paranoid!
susanmn23 - two turkeys and a ham?? holy cow!
Sorry I'm so full of questions today...
you fry them outside and we use peanut oil it doesnt burn as easily. make sure you pat the turkey dry as dry as you can get it you know oil and water doesnt really go well together. lol check food network for info on frying turkeys emeril did a show last year
we are having about 35 people over and not everyone likes turkey but the ones who do oh boy can they eat last year we had 3 turkeys and a ham but the turkeys were all about 10 lbs. ok i really got to get off this computer my house is in need of some cleaning before family starts coming over
I know very little about deep frying a turkey except they are sooo YUMMY! And it is important to measure the oil very carefully so that when you put the turkey into the hot oil you don't over flow the fryer!
Anyone else think the Allstate commercial is just too funny? 6,000 PEOPLE sucessfully deep fried their turkey--20 of them sucessfully burned down their houses. That is why Allstate is there.
Anyone else think the Allstate commercial is just too funny? 6,000 PEOPLE sucessfully deep fried their turkey--20 of them sucessfully burned down their houses. That is why Allstate is there.
I haven't seen that one yet! I love their commercials 
LOL, Newtodecorating, my luck, I would be one of the 20! I seriously considered changing our last name to "Murphy"!
Ok now I am wondering where is Dale? And how is he fixing his turkey??
I just wanted to vote for the frying option...here's why (a little story to entertain you):
My first year over here in Germany I decided I would cook a huge American Thanksgiving for my DH and his family since they had never experienced one. Did I mention that I had never cooked a Thanksgiving meal before?
But, I had everything planned out to the letter and was ready to face the challenge.
Turkeys are very rare here so my FIL had to special order one from an organic farmer. I told him we only needed about a 14 pound bird (people here don't eat nearly as much as we do, so it would have been plenty for 14 people).
Well, he came back with the turkey. It weighed nearly 40 pounds!! And FIL said it was one of the smallest they had. YIKES. The ovens here are much smaller so it was a huge effort getting that bad boy in the oven! It took FOREVER to cook! I started him at 7am to everyone's dismay (FIL kept complaining that he didn't need to go that early to pick up the turkey). Well, it still wasn't done at 6pm. People here eat their largest meal in the afternoon so at 2-3pm everyone was annoyed that the turkey wasn't done and just didn't quite grasp that it could take that long to cook A BIG HONKEN BIRD. Anyway...never again! 
I vote for the quick frying method!! 
We generally fry a turkey for Thanksgiving and brine & roast a turkey for Christmas. We've been frying turkeys for more than 12 years now (and wow, whole chickens deep fry wonderfully once you run out of turkey!) and have never had a fire. It is imperative that you measure your oil correctly so as not to have it run over when you put the turkey in. The easiest way is to put the turkey in the pot and fill the pot with water to about 3" below the rim of the pot. Remove the turkey and voila! You know the level of oil to use. Like the other poster said, dry the turkey very well....putting the bird in the oil at its proper frying temperature is quite a show, and you don't want to make it more intimidating by introducing alot of water into the oil.
Definitely use peanut oil...it is the absolute best oil for frying, and it imparts a wonderful flavor to the bird, chickens, catfish, or whatever else you happen to fry! And don't waste the oil...once cool, strain it through cheesecloth to remove the bits & pieces and store it in its original container.
Please be sure to have a fire extinguisher right there in case of an accident, and remember that the oil will splatter for ~ 2' around your frying pot...so make sure you're frying it on concrete in the driveway where you won't care about some oil stains.
YUM!
My BIL just brought it over and that bad boy is HUGE!! It barely fits in my refrigerator! I think I'm going to brave the trip to target to get a fryer - otherwise it'll take 8 hours to cook!!
Cande what a story! This is exactly what I'm afraid of!
Cakepro- thanks for the tips! DH is a fireman so he'll be in charge of this turkey - I'm not gonna go near it! Outside is his thing - plus now they're calling for snow!
Will this thing even fit in a turkey fryer??
That commercial is sooo funny...love it!! hehehe I've never known anyone who fries turkeys to use anything other than peanut oil...that's what we use too, always have. It has a lower flash/burning point, and since the turkey is in there a while, that's important...nothing worse than overcooked/burnt tasting oil on food..yuck. Plus, the whole fire thing is a downer too...lol. Most fryers have a fill-mark on the inside so you don't overfill it. A lot of fires start that way...people put too much oil in the fryer, then heat the oil, then add the turkey and when it overflows and the flame from the propane burner catches it....uh-oh...911!!! lol I'm not sure that a 30 lb. bird will fit in most standard fryers, though. I got a 23 lb. one last year and we had to cut it in half for it to fit .... so it turned out a little greasy, but it was still tasty. And we had to cook each half separately. Maybe measure the circumference of the bird and then compare that with the fryers they have at the store...allowing for some wiggle room, of course. Good luck with whatever you decide to do with that GIANT!!! lol
Gee, we must be oinkers because we always get between a 26 and 28 pound turkey, sometimes even bigger and there are only between 7 and 12 of us usually. I find for a turkey this size that the turkey roasting pans that are supposed to fit up to 30 lb turkeys, don't. So we usually use an old rectangular baking pan that works just fine. We just roast a fresh turkey in the oven in its own juices and it is always moist. Don't even get the self-basting ones anymore. A meat thermometer is a good idea!
Hugs Squirrelly
Also when frying your turkey you want to make sure you have the right amount of oil in your pot.
What you need to do is fill the pot with water first, then place your turkey in the pot to see where the water line will be, then take your turkey out and measure your water so you know how much oil to put into your pot. Oil spillage will definetely cause a fire.
And the person who said make sure your bird is patted dry is correct- also make sure that your bird is completely defrosted, if it's not, it will cause your oil to sputter and splatter all around (just ask the hubby who had the bright idea to put a completely frozen bird into the hot oil).
Hi
our biggest turkey was about 50lbs. We roasted it. we used a couple of tinfoil roasters sitting on top of a cookie sheet for strength. (it bent the oven rack a little) The cooking charts are a little out of wack at this size- you cant double the time it doesnt work!! (it doesnt take that long)
We toothed picked some bacon over it covered it in foil (it was stuffed). Being a free range turkey we never have to basted it or whatever they do to the butterball things!!! 
it always tastes great
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