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Those nice folks at SLAC have come up with the answer to how long you should cook your turkey for (at 325°F = 160°C):

where t is the cooking time in hours and W is the weight of the stuffed turkey, in pounds. The constant 1.5 was determined empirically. (source).

Happy Thanksgiving folks.

Bob.

P.S. On reflection it might not be the best decision to wander into the kitchen and start waving that formula under your partner's nose!

P.P.S. Shan't be cooking mine until Christmas but that formula gives about 15% longer than I use with a fan oven.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I prefer beef.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I'm a vegetarian

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

time should be in seconds, weight in kilograms and temperature in Kelvin!!!
Because of that I'm not so shure about the source

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Radu
Canon PowerShot S100
Canon 50D , SIGMA 10-20 f3.5 ,Canon EF 24-105 L IS USM, Canon EF 100/2.8 macro Canon EF 50/1.4 ,Canon EF 85 f1.8,Canon EF-S17-85 4-5.6 Old Tamron 28-300 inherited from my Canon Rebel G film camera
Canon580EXII
http://www.errre.net

I'm a vegetarian since 1994. So yes, I prefer potatoes.
I bet a "stuffed potato" doesn't need more than 40 minutes

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Canon EOS 500D + Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Canon EF 24-105mm 4L IS USM + EF 100-400mm 4.5-5.6L IS USM + EF 100mm 2.8L Macro IS USM + Sigma 12-24mm 4.5-5.6 EX DG HSM + Canon Speedlite 580 EX II + Nissin Speedlite Di 466

To me turkey (and most bird) meat isn't that meaty anyway, you're practically vegetarian if you eat much of it in preference to say pork or beef.

Side note: once I had a day trip to Mexico for work. The place we ate lunch I was told was vegetarian before we got there, so I wasn't over filled with confidence. Turned out their definition of veggie was "not red meat" so they did do chicken etc. Maybe something lost in translation...

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

A bit like an Australian vegetarian, popo?

They have salad, with their barbie!

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Nikon D700 & D7100 bodies + Nikkor 300mm F2.8 VR11, 1.7TC, 50mm F1.4G, 16-35mm f/4G VR, 105 F2.8 VR macro, 70-300mm lenses. A couple of filters, Giotto tripod & ballhead. Lowepro Slingshot 302 AW

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldcarlos/

I've saved my Turkey for Christmas. I couldn't be bothered to prepare it to be honest I hope I don't get any more temptations thrown in my face otherwise I won't end up cooking at all!

Laughed in RL


Don't worry vegetarians, for every animal you don't eat, I will eat four


About the cooking time of the Turkey though, something I recently did with a slab of meat dry rubbed with salt and pepper, setting the oven to 48C and just letting the meat sit there for several hours, before increasing the temperature a bit more so that the beef just hits 55C core temperature, and then giving it a very short fry in the pan with butter to get the crisp caramelized taste on the surface (Remember to always let the meat rest after being in the oven!!!). It ended up being perfectly pink and very tender throughout the whole piece.
Something similar might work with Turkey to avoid it getting so dry, pan frying it will be a problem, but that is where the oven "grill-function" comes in. 75C would probably suffice as the core temperature.
There is also the trick to inject fat directly under the skin of the bird to make it more juicy.

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Canon 5D MkII -|- Sigma 24mm f/1.8 | Carl Zeiss 35mm f/2.0 | Canon 50mm f/1.4 | Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro | Lensbaby Composer
Canon A-1 -|- Canon 28mm f/2 | Canon 35mm f/2.8 | Canon 50mm f/3.5 Macro

Just from reading this I can hear my arteries hardening...

Can't wait to try it!

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Canon 500D and 10D with grip; 580 ExII

Canon EF 28-105 f/3.5-4.5 USM; Canon EF 75-300 mm f/4.0-5.6 II; Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3; Canon EF-S 18-55 IS (broken); Canon EF 50 f/1.8 II

I eat anything, as long as it tastes good. Its also traditional for me to open a bottle of sparkling Shiraz to go with xmas dinner.

Lorride not sure if that method would work with Turkey or chicken, as it needs to be cooked through properly. Spending many hours in the oven may just keep in in that bad temp zone for too long.


Of course we have salad with our bbq`s, what do you have?

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Canon Powershot S95, Canon 7D, 15-85, Canon 85 1.8 USM, Sigma 30 1.4, 50mm 1.8, Canon 100 2.8L IS Macro, Canon 70-300L IS USM+Kenko 1.4 Pro 300DGX, Canon 430EX II and RS 4 Classic

Like Lorride says.........MORE meat.

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Nikon D700 & D7100 bodies + Nikkor 300mm F2.8 VR11, 1.7TC, 50mm F1.4G, 16-35mm f/4G VR, 105 F2.8 VR macro, 70-300mm lenses. A couple of filters, Giotto tripod & ballhead. Lowepro Slingshot 302 AW

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldcarlos/

The "cool cooked" turkey was on TV not that long ago. Think in that case they used something like 60C for some stupid number of hours. The risk remaining was that there could be harmful stuff not killed at these low temperatures, so they got around that by alternately dunking it in boiling and iced water. Boiling to kill surface bugs, iced water to stop it from cooking from the boiling. Some process I can't remember at the end to crisp it up a bit.

Like most things that carry some risk, only try this if you know what you're doing!

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Well, you have to take it up to the advised temperature in the end anyways, I and anyone who cooks regularly know very well what temperatures different meats require to kill of certain bacterias.
It's the way you get there which is where my point was

It works well with chicken fillet, haven't tried it on a complete "carcass" though.

I don't know if you guys know this, but it is being used by restaurants today, vacuum packed meat which is submerged in water at fairly low temperatures so the meat does not overcook, but can be kept there for a fairly long time which makes it simpler to manage and reduces the final cooking time drastically.

popo,

I had a feeling someone had done a similar thing. And I agree about the oven use, kinda silly if takes some serious amount of time.
One can though eliminate some of this by letting the bird get to room temperature all the way through, allowing it to just sit on the kitchen table will work just fine. Which is a general thing one is supposed to do with meat anyways.

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Canon 5D MkII -|- Sigma 24mm f/1.8 | Carl Zeiss 35mm f/2.0 | Canon 50mm f/1.4 | Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro | Lensbaby Composer
Canon A-1 -|- Canon 28mm f/2 | Canon 35mm f/2.8 | Canon 50mm f/3.5 Macro