Freezing a turkey?

[Deerhunter]

Not sure if this is the right place to put this or not......

So I am headed out on my first real turkey hunt Saturday. If I happen to get lucky enough to get one how do I go about freezing it? I am sure that my vacuum sealer bags aren't going to be nig enough. So what do you all do? I would really like to freeze it till Thanksgiving.

Thanks for any info

 

[Doyle]

I've never seen anyone cook a whole wild turkey the way you do a domestic bird. Every one I know breaks it down and cooks the pieces.

 

[langenc]

Try cutting in half and using the vacuum bag system. We have cooked the whole bird a couple times.

Make sure that the bird you put into the freezer aint one w/ a DNR beeper in it or the turkey cop may come a checking your freezer.

 

[natman]

Make sure that the bird you put into the freezer aint one w/ a DNR beeper in it or the turkey cop may come a checking your freezer.

Could you expand a bit on this? DNR beeper? How would they install one on a live turkey?

 

[reloader28]

We raised some turkeys that all butchered out at over 20 lbs, the biggest at 31 lbs and we vac sealed them.

But, we ordered some 5 gallon mylar bags and used those to freeze the birds. Worked good, except since they have a smooth surface instead of the rougher edge of the vac bags, we had to use a couple of stout straws in between the mylar layers to suck the air out with. Its a little bit of a pain, but once we figured out how to do it, it worked great.

 

[Mavrik]

I've never seen anyone cook a whole wild turkey the way you do a domestic bird. Every one I know breaks it down and cooks the pieces.

I do find that I am in the distinct minority as I do freeze my turkey "whole" and we do cook it nearly the same the way as a domesticated bird. The only change this year was to soak it overnight in a Poultry brine solution.

To get back to the topic at hand I put the turkey in one of the Ziploc XL or (10 Gallon) or XXL (20 gallon) bags and place it in the chest freezer. I can't remember the exact size I used but it was the smallest size it fit in (18lb bird when it was ready for the freezer/cooking).

The one I got this past fall kept fine in that condition from October until we cooked him at thanksgiving. A few years back I kept one of the two that I took that fall season until the following spring, I want to say Easter, with no ill results (the other was used at Thanksgiving).

I admit I get quite a few weird looks when I tell people what I do, but I certainly haven't had any complaints yet. There wasn't anything left of our thanksgiving day turkey after everyone was done.




My daughter decided it was her job to stuff the turkey Thanksgiving morning. She was quite demanding about it.

 

[Scorch]

Freeze it in a large ZipLoc freezer bag (or double-bag it in regular ZipLoc bags). Add some water to the bag before freezing it, it will reduce the chances of it from getting "freezer burn".

 

[Nnobby45]

The way Sgt. York (played by Gary Cooper) used to freeze a Turkey was say Gobble, Gobble, Gobble. Froze 'em in their tracks and they'd stick their head out----bam! Worked on Germans, too.

OK, couldn't resist that.


Bone out the meat and use double freezer Zip Locs.

OR: To really keep it fresh for months, freeze it in water (completely submerged). Meat and fish keep very well that way.

 

[Deerhunter]

Thanks for all the ideas. Someone told me to wet the turkey and freeze it. Once froozen take it out and get it wet again and freeze it. Continue doing that until a goo layer of ice is built up. Keeps it from getting frost bitten.

Now all I need to do is actually get a turkey this weekend.

Thanks again

 

[FrontSight]

How did it go?

 

[Deerhunter]

The guy that was going to take me out never called or emailed. I missed out on turkey hunting this year. Oh well, maybe I will get a chance to hook up with someone next year.

 

[FrontSight]

Oh man, the exact same thing happened to me once, I was pretty bummed; that's a pretty mean thing to do, sorry to hear.