Tongue basting works for me : )

Brining Turkey No matter how you cook it, a brine will make it better By Derrick Riches, About.com BBQ Ads Turkey Flavor How Long to Cook Turkey Roast Turkey Turkey Stuffing Recipes Turkey Breeds I've said it before and I'll say it again, the best way to get flavorful poultry, regardless of how it is prepared, is to start with a brine. Brining adds moisture and flavor to poultry and helps to keep it from drying out. A turkey can be a serious investment in time so you want to make sure it is perfect, especially if you're entertaining. Whether you grill, smoke, fry, or roast your turkey, you should use a brined bird. Supplies: To properly brine a turkey you need to start the night before you plan to cook. You will need at least 10 to 12 hours (plan on 1 hour per pound of turkey), a container large enough to hold your turkey and enough brine to cover it. You'll also need salt, water, sugar, seasonings, and enough room to refrigerate it. A large stainless steel stock pot or even a 5 gallon clean plastic bucket would make excellent containers. Whatever container you choose the turkey needs to have enough room to be turned so it should be big. Both Reynolds (Oven Roasting Bag for Turkeys) and Ziploc (XL Storage Bag) make very large food safe sealable bags that are great for brining. Turkey: Now let's get to the turkey. The turkey should be cleaned out, completely thawed, and should not be a self-basting or Kosher turkey. Self-basting and Kosher turkeys have a salty stock added that will make your brined turkey too salty. A fresh turkey works best, but a completely thawed, previously frozen turkey will work just as well. Brine Ingredients: To make the brine, mix 1 cup of table salt in 1 gallon of water. You will need more than 1 gallon of water but that’s the ratio to aim for. One way of telling if you have enough salt in your brine is that a raw egg will float in it. Make sure that the salt is completely dissolved before adding the seasonings you like, making sure not to add anything that contains salt. Brines can be spicy hot with peppers and cayenne, savory with herbs and garlic, or sweet with molasses, honey and brown sugar. Whatever your tastes are, you can find a large number of brine recipes on my site. Sweetening the Brine: Sugar is optional to any brine, but works to counteract the flavor of the salt. While you may choose a brine without sugar, I do recommend that you add sugar (any kind of "sweet" will do) to maintain the flavor of the turkey. Add up to 1 cup of sugar per gallon of brine. Like the salt you need to make sure that the sugar is completely dissolved. Set-up: Place the turkey in a container and pour in enough brine to completely cover the turkey with an inch or two to spare. You do not want any part of the turkey above the surface of the brine. Now you put the whole thing in the refrigerator. If you are like me, making enough room in the fridge is the hardest part of this project. The turkey should sit in the brine for about 1 hour per pound of turkey. Brining too long is much worse than not brining enough so watch the time. Keep it Cool!: Don't have room in the refrigerator? Try a cooler. A cooler big enough to hold your turkey makes a good container for your turkey and brine. The cooler will help keep it cool and allow you to brine your turkey without taking up precious refrigerator space. If the weather is cool, but not freezing you can put the whole thing outside until you need the turkey. If the weather is warm fill a a zip top bag with ice. Place this in the cooler with the turkey and brine and it will hold down the temperature during the brining process. Rinsing: When you are ready to start cooking your turkey, remove it from the brine and rinse it off thoroughly in the sink with cold water until all traces of salt are off the surface inside and out. Safely discard the brine and cook your turkey as normal. You will notice the second you start to carve your turkey that the brining has helped it retain moisture. The first bite will sell you on brining turkeys forever, and after you've tried this you will want to brine all your poultry.

Cooking a turkey, huge or little, is a ton simpler than you may suspect. The key is, to begin with, a turkey that has been prepared effectively, at that point take measures to ensure it does not dry out when cooking it. Choosing the right turkey precedes everything else and determines the kind of input you'll put as you work on cooking the turkey. Read on to figure out how to Cook and how long does it take to Smoke a Turkey and also how to choose a turkey, smoking it, seasoning it to your tastes and dish it in the oven.

An apple and an orange in the stuffing

A turkey that isn't over cooked shouldn't dry out and a remote thermometer can halp a lot in that regard. For super moist turret use a turkey roasting bag from the supermarket. I have done that and the stuffing was actually too wet (mushy). To resolve that we do some stuffing out of the bird and if the stuffing in the bird gets too wet we mix the two stuffings and it becomes perfect (for me).

maybe cook it longer

Don't overcook it.

Buy a young one (preferably organic), slather it in olive oil, and don't overcook it.

I've cooked an inordinate amount of turkeys (given I'm single). My favorite recipe - (they've turned out wonderful every time) - involves sliding two half-sticks of butter (cut lengthwise) under the breast skin and dowsing the bird in a spiced broth. The butter adds flavor while preventing the meat from becoming dry, and the broth in the pan adds additional moisturizing while the bird cooks. Unfortunately...I can no longer find the recipe online! It used to be so easy to find...

Travel to the mid-west of the USA; lots of turkeys here, and I've been one a time or 2 also.

Purchase a policy from the poultry ensurance company?

baste it often

baste often