The early stages of recrystallization of new grains in previously hot-deformed polycrystalline aluminium samples have been studied using the transmission pseudo-Kossel technique to establish the orientational relationship between the new strain-free grains and the adjacent deformed grains. The aluminium samples were deformed to true strains of 0.22 and 0.51 at 300°C with a strain rate of 4.61 × 10 −4 s −1. The hot-deformed samples were quenched in water after the deformation and the delay time was less than 10 s. Recrystallization studies were carried out at 300°C. The orientational measurements showed that at the early stages of recrystallization the orientations of the new grains were within the orientational spread of the adjacent deformed grains. The predominant mechanism of nucleation was found to be strain induced boundary migration (SIBM).