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[quote=Anonymous]With a brined bird?  And your stuffing doesn't taste way over salty?  I would never stuff a brined bird.

For those with a non-brined bird, it's a heck of a lot easier to do stuffing outside the bird.  No food poisoning risk, your turkey roasts faster and times out more reliably, it's more even from the outside to the inside (you won't dry out the breast), etc.  Check out the Cooking Network and Food Network shows -- none of the TV chefs advocate stuffing inside.

But if you're bound and determined, just know what you're doing.  Don't overstuff.  Measure temp carefully.  Most important, roast at a low temperature (325) for a looonng time.  Build time into your schedule for that.

The idea of stuffing the inside is to allow the turkey to cook slowly without getting overdone.  By going slowly, you allow the fat in the turkey to render, and soak through the meat (keeping it juicy) and into the cavity (making your stuffing taste great too).  That means you don't want to trim fat away, you don't want to tear the skin (exposing the breast meat), and you want to allow sufficient time for the rendering to happen.  A high-temp roasting temperature defeats all of that.  First of all, the fat doesn't have time to render.  Second, with the high temp, the outside of your bird will be done and drying out before the inside and the stuffing are up to temperature -- leading to that food poisoning worry.

If you're intent on doing this, it wouldn't hurt you also to do a butter/herb/salt/pepper (and garlic if you're so inclined) mash and work it in with your fingers under the skin, between the skin and the breast meat. But be oh so careful not to tear the skin.  And trussing the bird, to keep the skin and all the fat in contact with the meat, would be a good idea.    [/quote]

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