Research Tool Bench

Turkey Roasting Time Comparator

Last updated 2026-08-17

Most turkey time calculators quote one number for "minutes per pound" without saying whose figure it is. The one article we found that names its sources (a chart averaging Butterball, Honeysuckle White, Jennie-O, Norbest, Shady Brook Farms and Foster Farms) says outright that "each major turkey brand provides slightly different roasting times" — then blends them into a single chart anyway. We fetched three of those brands' own current pages directly. At a 14 lb turkey, Butterball's own chart says 3 hours to 3 hours 30 minutes; Jennie-O's own chart says 4 hours 15 minutes to 4 hours 45 minutes — over an hour apart, for the same bird at the same 325°F, unstuffed.

Time is a plan, not a doneness test None of these figures should decide when your turkey is safe to eat — a food thermometer does that. We wanted to cite the USDA's own minimum safe internal temperature here, but fsis.usda.gov and cdc.gov both returned an access-denied response to every direct fetch we tried this session, so we are not going to restate a number we could not load from its own page. What we could fetch directly: Butterball's own page says its turkey is done at 170°F in the thigh and 170°F in the breast or stuffing — check your current government guidance and your thermometer's own instructions before you rely on any number below.
Your turkey

Why the gap is this wide

None of the three pages explains its own numbers, so we are not going to invent a reason they disagree. What is checkable is that all three specify the same 325°F oven and, for the unstuffed case, none mentions a convection setting or any other variable that would explain an hour's difference on the same-size bird. The most likely candidates — a different assumed starting temperature, a different oven-calibration margin, or simple brand-to-brand differences in testing — are not stated by any of the three pages, so none of them is asserted here as the reason.

What this does not do

Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. If "named sources disagree, shown side by side instead of blended" is useful here, the baking ingredient weight converter does the same thing for King Arthur Baking and America's Test Kitchen's flour and sugar weights.