This is from The Pioneer Woman’s blog. I have had similar experience to her using frozen, so just use fresh now.
1. Use a fresh (i.e. non-frozen) turkey.
The reason for this is that most frozen turkeys are typically injected with a sodium solution to help them freeze well, and brining an already-injected turkey can often result in an inedible bird (Ive learned this the hard way.) Fresh turkeys are typically not preserved this way. Be sure to check the package before you buy the turkey, too; some frozen turkeys are thawed out before theyre sold, so they can give the impression of being fresh. But if they say Injected With Sodium Solution (or anything resembling this), you wont want to brine themor, if you do brine them, decrease the time.
Frem Pioneer woman site;
I will say that my friend Julie found frozen turkeys at Whole Foods that were injected with a sodium solution, but on a very small scale. We just decreased the amount of time we brined them (around 12 hours instead of 16-24) and they turned out great!
To make it easy, just read the labels and/or ask the meat department or butcher. Just keep in mind that if you brine a frozen turkey, youll want to use one with injected with a lower sodium percentage than average.
Thanks pug. The turkey is injected with a small amount of chicken broth with a little sodium...so I’m not worried and am going to brine it anyway and as you say, just leave it in for less time.