Butchering and rigor mortis

[jennigrey]

Thanksgiving dinner had his food taken away from him this morning. Tomorrow morning I will be butchering. Did I wait too long to butcher? I like the brine the turkey overnight on Wednesday night, then start roasting at about noon on Thursday. Will rigor mortis be gone by the time I intend to but the turkey into the brine?

After scalding, plucking and eviscerating, does the carcass go straight into ice water or do you chill in cool water first, then ice water?

[akane]

Having a few days to sit would have been better but if the bird is young you don't have to wait for rigor mortis to completely go away. I've heard people talking about how to cook chickens when they've left them sit in odd positions in the fridge and they got "frozen" that way by rigor mortis so they couldn't get them tucked down in the roasting pan.

I butcher, rinse, and put them in to 50-60F well water while I get everything done. Then put the whole container in the fridge and ignore it for about 3 days. After that we cook, marinade, or freeze. The only time I use ice is if the fridge doesn't have enough capacity and then we leave them sit in cheap coolers of ice water draining a little off and adding new ice every day until we have space or want to use them. Normally I don't find enough motivation to butcher enough animals in one day to surpass the capacity of my fridge. The few occasions I did we knew we wouldn't get them all eaten so I gave them to friends or cut them down and froze them the same day to use as dog food.

[chickenista]

Oh it will be just fine.
Perfect timing. Let it soak tonight and tomorrow night and then rinse it well, pat it dry..oil and herbs or whatever you want to do and yum!!!

And we toss ours into cold water and let them sit until all birds are done and we have cleaned up adn then we bring them in and brine them. Letting them sit a bit just washes away more of the blood etc.. and cools them down.

[jennigrey]

Thank you both!