Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler American Thanksgiving recipe ideas

I'm going up to Chicago to celebrate Thanksgiving with my brother and his fiancee. He put me in charge of the turkey and I'm going to be making this beer-brined birdie with my homebrew wheaty pale ale:

http://www.homebrewchef.com/BeerBrinedTurkey.html

There are a lot more beer-themed Thanksgiving dishes here, for anyone interested:

http://www.homebrewchef.com/ThanksgivingBeerMenu.html

Interesting. I've cooked red meat with beer before, but not a bird. We usually soak it in apple juice. Might just have to try beer.

I had planned to buy a turduchen, but by the time I pay for over night air, the damn thing will run me about 250 bucks.

Thank you for those links, peter.

Looks like the family is having a beer-brined turkey

Where in Chicago are you going to be?

My brother lives in the neighborhood east of Humboldt Park. I'll be there for a week starting this Sunday, with time to spare for meetups.

There's a friend I'm having a beer with soon that's going to show me a couple good beer places around Humboldt Park...I'll keep you posted. Do we have any other axiomites in the chicago area?

I realize you are in charge of the Turkey, but this recipe we did a couple years ago for a colonial day at the kids school, it has now become a family tradition for us and is absolutely delicious.

http://www.forkandbottle.com/cooking/recipes/pumpkin_pie_in_a_pumpkin.htm

Started beer brining the turkey in Hefeweizen tonight. 36 hours of brining goodness. I'm excited.

Also going to take a stab at making the gravy and the mashed potatoes.

Thanks for the links!

Anybody got a recipe for a pitcher full of cosmopolitans?

Seen Yesterday.
Billboard sign on Gigantic Alcohol Mart:

Thanksgiving is for Families
We Have Liquor

Amen.

Oh, and Tom. If no one here can provide what you need (I'd be truly sp, sp, speechless), I can make one phone call. Lemme know.

Thanks, Bob. I had "my" recipe, but not sure how it will scale. I RTFM, er, used the search feature, and found The Cocktail Thread which sent me in the right direction.

Wow. The beer brine recipe was spectacular. It was probably the best turkey my relatives, family and I had ever tasted. I used a Trader Joe's Hefeweizen. Nice, bright, wheat flavor to the turkey.

For Christmas I'm thinking of doing a darker, malty brine based off of the "Tipsy Turkey" recipe there.

For the Gravy, I used Sam Adams Boston Lager, and various mushrooms. Added some cream to round out the saltiness of the broth. Also excellent. I had never made gravy "from scratch" before, so that was exciting.

For the mashed potatoes, went with a Goose Island IPA. If I did this again, I'd tone down the garlic and butter, and do more IPA. It was a wonderful flavor that went well with the gravy.

Thanks again for the links! I hope everyone's thanksgiving was flavorful and full of good family time.

By the way, peter, how did your turkey turn out?

I'm going to guess it got gobble gobbled.

Yeesh, don't give thanks for bad jokes.

Our turkey was amazing, too. I brined a 12lb turkey for 24 hours. I used a half gallon of my wheaty pale ale home brew and a half gallon of Sam Adams Oktoberfest in the brine. I asked the chef what to do with the brine after the turkey was done and he said to dump it as it had already done its job. I did make a stock out of the turkey carcass and drippings, so at least the briney goodness lives on there.

I also made the mushroom gravy, using Goose Island Mild Winter ale. Everyone loved it.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting my Great Uncle (mom's dad's brother) and his family for the first time. I never got to meet my mom's dad, so I'm looking forward to this get-together. His wife said they'll have some strong Polish beer for me. This is why I substituted half the beer in the turkey brine with Sam Adams. I intended to do it entirely with my homebrew, but the opportunity to share my homebrew with new-to-me family was too important to pass up.

Sounds delicious!