Bone in turkey breast help.

[hooked on smoke]

Greetings,
I have a bone in turkey breast and could use some ideas. I have not done one of these yet so any suggestions will be helpful and appreciated.

Brine and rub?
Inject and brine and rub?
How long in brine solution?

If any or all of the above, would anyone be willing to share their favorites?

I will be smoking in my Mes40. What would be a temp to run. I'm at work now so I don't know how much it weighs. Approximate time for turkey breast?

Thank you all in advance.

 

[zwiller]

What brand is it? Some birds are "enhanced".

 

[BrianGSDTexoma]

I have one getting ready to hit the smoker in couple hours. I like curing turkey with Pop's low salt brine for 4 days. Rinced this morning and air drying in fridge. Plan on 225 for 1 hour than 325 for 2 until close to 160. Sure others will chime in.

Pops6927's Curing Brines - Regular and Lo-Salt

These are my Curing brines for pork, beef (corned and dried), poultry, and so on. Regular Curing Brine: 1 gallon of clean water 1 cup plain, regular non-iodized table salt 1 cup sugar or sucrolose 1 cup brown sugar or sucrolose equiv. 1...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[sandyut]

I always use the slaughterhouse brine and splatchcock it. then butter and rub under teh skin and oil and rub on top of skin. you got the temp above :) comes out killer good.

thank you pineywoods
Slaughterhouse Poultry Brine By Tip Piper of Hillbilly Vittles
1 ½ Gal Water
½ C Salt - Kosher
½ C Dark Brown Sugar
2 tsp Garlic Powder
2 tsp Onion Powder
2 tsp Cajun Spice (Louisiana Cajun Seasoning)
2 tsp Celery Seed

 

[mlk18]

Last summer I bought six boneless turkey breasts all around 6.5lbs. I cooked them two at a time, once a month, for three months. This was an experminet to decide how I was going to cook for house full of people on Thanksgiving. I brined the first two (48 hours), injected the second two (12 hours before cook), and dry brined the last two (24 hours). The theme of all was basically salt, sugar/honey, pepper, garlic, and butter. They all were coated with my homemade SPG before indirect cooking with pecan and apple wood for smoke. They were all wrapped at 135-140 with lots of butter inside the foil then went back on until 163 degrees then were rested for 25 minutes. In the end they all ended up being different ways to produce the same end product. Everyone (meaning myself, the wife, and 5 kids) agreed that they had pretty much the same flavor profile and the same level of moistness. They also had nearly identical cook times. Since injecting just seemed the easiest to me, I injected my Thanksgiving turkey breasts and the the whole crowd ranted and raved about how good they were. My injection mixture was basically homemade turkey bone broth, Kerrygold butter, fresh squeezed lemon juice, garlic powder, black pepper, white pepper, and a little salt.

 

[tallbm]

Greetings,
I have a bone in turkey breast and could use some ideas. I have not done one of these yet so any suggestions will be helpful and appreciated.

Brine and rub?
Inject and brine and rub?
How long in brine solution?

If any or all of the above, would anyone be willing to share their favorites?

I will be smoking in my Mes40. What would be a temp to run. I'm at work now so I don't know how much it weighs. Approximate time for turkey breast?

Thank you all in advance.

My preference would be to make a 2% salt equilibrium brine. Use that brine and inject the turkey breast deep in the meat and then submerge and brine for like 3 days. This gives you the best of both worlds and because it's an equilibrium brine you won't ever be too salty even if you brine for a week straight. If you have Cure#1 I would also do that as well, it makes amazing smoked turkey flavor!
For the brine I would do just salt + water (if you have cure #1 I would add that too, if not no biggy). Once brine is done pull it out, rinse and season with any seasonings or rubs that DO NOT contain salt. I suggest just doing Pepper, Onion, Garlic seasoning. Salt comes from the brine so no need for more salt.
If you have questions about what an equillibrium brine is please ask and we can help u with that.

Next, I'm afraid I have bad news about the skin when smoking in an MES. Unless you are one of the lucky few who's MES actually hits 275F and gets closer to 300F then you will end up with leather skin. You can take some drastic measures to try and get the skin to be edible but chances are you will not be satisfied with what becomes of the skin.
You can always just remove the skin all together and you should be fine as well, I've done that with skin on the breast of whole chickens and they turn out fine.

Is you MUST have good skin let us know and we can throw a number of suggestions at you but my personal experience is the only surefire way to have good poultry skin when smoking is to smoke cook at 325F+, which is something a stock MES cannot do.

I hope this info helps! :)

 

[hooked on smoke]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I went with a simple brine for 24 hours then into the Mes40 at 235 until it reached 265. I was a few IPA's into it by then so after cooling down into the fridge it went for the night. Needless to say I will be doing a different method next time. Taste was good but it was quite dry.
Sorry for not posting any pictures I will try later. I'm embarrassed to share the results.
Thanks again, until next time.

 

[tallbm]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I went with a simple brine for 24 hours then into the Mes40 at 235 until it reached 265. I was a few IPA's into it by then so after cooling down into the fridge it went for the night. Needless to say I will be doing a different method next time. Taste was good but it was quite dry.
Sorry for not posting any pictures I will try later. I'm embarrassed to share the results.
Thanks again, until next time.

Keep at it. I would think a turkey breast not well wrapped sitting in a fridge over night in the fridge will likely be dry. Also a 24 hr brine may not get all the way into the breast so consider injecting some of that brine all into the breast and then submerge and brine for 24 hours. Every little bit helps!
Whole chickens are cheap and easy to practice on.

Thanks for the update though! :)

 

[zwiller]

I think I had to throw away 2-3 turkeys before I could even eat mine so don't be embaressed. Edible is still a win!

 

[hooked on smoke]

Keep at it. I would think a turkey breast not well wrapped sitting in a fridge over night in the fridge will likely be dry. Also a 24 hr brine may not get all the way into the breast so consider injecting some of that brine all into the breast and then submerge and brine for 24 hours. Every little bit helps!
Whole chickens are cheap and easy to practice on.

Thanks for the update though! :)

Thanks tallbm,
I keep at it for sure. When I put it to bed for the night it was in Tupperware. Should I have wrapped in plastic wrap?

 

[hooked on smoke]

Made me a turkey sandwich and my slicing skills aside, it was actually quite good.
Thanks again everyone.
Until next time.

 

[tallbm]

Thanks tallbm,
I keep at it for sure. When I put it to bed for the night it was in Tupperware. Should I have wrapped in plastic wrap?

Possibly. Turkey breast may be the meat most likely to dry out on you no matter what.
I know that turkey breasts are quite thick so your 24hr brine time was likely not enough time to penetrate throughout the entire breast. This is why injecting it with you brine solution in addition to wet brining it kind makes it a fool proof strategy.
Wrapping well in plastic wrap or vaccum sealing would surely help some but if it was dry to start with then nothing can be done to really help that much hahaa.

If the meat is a little dry it likely be very usable for soups where you make the soup and add the meat in during the last 10 minutes or so.
Also you can shred it up and mix with some BBQ sauce and make amazing bbq sandwiches and that usually resolves dry meat issues. If it is super dry then it would at least make it easily edible so it doesnt go to waste.

There are lots of things you can do with some plain dry turkey breast meat so don't through it out unless it's completely ruined and a dog wouldnt eat it haha :)