Your friends and family will certainly perk up when the aroma of your BBQ turkey wafts into the house through the open door to your backyard. Whether it’s Gobbler Day or any other occasion, turkey is comfort food that sets the mood for your gathering. Many have asked me whether you can BBQ a turkey and won’t cooking it in a smoker dry it out? If you follow my secret step to dry brine it first, you’ll amaze your guests with this simple and fool proof recipe.

I like a dry brine versus a wet brine because it’s less work and easier cleanup. With dry brines, only the surface of the meat is covered in salt rather than in a wet brine, where the entire bird is soaked in a salt solution (the brine) before cooking. For a wet brine, you mix the brining liquid in a large bucket, immerse your turkey, and then refrigerate overnight. If you have a 20 lb turkey, you’ll need a 5-gallon container and will likely need to remove a shelf in your fridge for it to fit. Further, you’ll probably have to use something like a brick or heavy pot to weigh it down so it’s completely submerged. It’s a messy process and with all the liquid sloshing around, it’s easy to contaminate your kitchen with nasty bugs like Salmonella. Wet brining creates an interaction with the salt and protein that makes cooked meat moister by 1) swelling the cells of the meat with water before cooking and 2) by minimizing water loss of the cells as the meat is cooked. Dry brining works primarily by the interaction of the salt and protein which causes the cells to hold on to water better than unbrined meat, rather than actual increase in water volume.

The brine also gives the meat a desirable salty flavor and infuses it with any aromatics that are in the brine such as peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme, sugar, etc. The concern with wet brining is that you may dilute the protein flavor and also get a soggy texture which sometimes results when excessive moisture is absorbed from the brine liquid. Dry brining consistently retains a firm meat texture and it avoids this risk. The worry of the dry brine approach is that the salt does not get past the fatty skin to season the meat underneath so some folks suggest putting the rub under the skin. I’ve tried that and I prefer the rub on the skin as my experience is that if you do it for at least a day before your cook it, the outcome is superb. Of all the techniques I’ve experimented, dry brine produces the best results even if I may not completely understand how and why. For example, this dry brine approach helped us finish 1st in chicken in the nation in the Kansas City BBQ Society (KCBS) rankings among 6,000 teams in 2012. In summary, skip the hassle with wet brines and use my dry technique with your poultry and you’ll get a tasty bird. We all eat with our eyes so I use a secret ingredient to get a gorgeous color on my turkey skin. If it’s good enough for NASA astronauts, then it’s good enough for your turkey. Sprinkle a medium coat of Orange Tang on your turkey or any poultry to get a mouthwatering glow on your meat. Don’t be afraid to use Tang liberally on the bird. It’s unlikely you’ll overdo it. In addition to the stunning color, it leaves a very faint sweet orange note (desirable I think) to your meat.