Hope all had a wonderful thanksgiving. From the posts I have seen, there was a lot of good food enjoyed by our smoking community.
I was interested in smoking a turkey breast for appetizers at the Thanksgiving meal.
I read a number of recipes and techniques on this forum that I used in planning my strategy. So, here is what I came up with.
Seeing as I was using just the breast, I didn't account for the weight of the bones.
I decided to use the 10% brine method for this cook.
Here is the formula I used: (Salt amount corrected see text below)
1 kg of turkey
100 g water
16.25 g salt
19 g sugar (I used dark brown as it was what I had on hand)
2.75 g Cure #1
Mixed the salt, sugar and cure #1 in very hot water until all components are dissolved.
Put cure mix in freezer to chill.
Inject breast with chilled cure mixture.
Placed breast in vac seal bag and into the fridge for 2 days.
Removed breast from vac bag and soaked in water for 1 hour.
Place some butter under the skin.
Added some Harry Soo's chicken rub to the skin and let the breast dry out a bit while I got Sarina hot.
Smoked the turkey breast with Pit Boss Fruit wood blend pellets at 225 F to an IT of 165 F
Pulled, covered, and in the fridge over night.
The turkey breast was moist and delicious. I was quite impressed for this being my first attempt at a smoked turkey. It was like the best turkey sandwich meat I ever tasted.
I may adjust the salt down a bit next time as the salt content wasn't bad or overpowering, I just want a bit less salt next go around.
My mistake was not subtracting the weight of the cure from the salt so my end salt concentration was a bit higher than I usually shoot for. I corrected that in my formula above.
The skin was rubbery and pretty much a throw away but was expecting that.
I have no pics to share of this unfortunately.
I am thinking that this smoked turkey would make the most amazing Kentucky Hot Brown.
Thanks to everyone on the forum who provided me guidance and insight into getting this done. I will certainly be doing this again. So delicious.....
JC
I was interested in smoking a turkey breast for appetizers at the Thanksgiving meal.
I read a number of recipes and techniques on this forum that I used in planning my strategy. So, here is what I came up with.
Seeing as I was using just the breast, I didn't account for the weight of the bones.
I decided to use the 10% brine method for this cook.
Here is the formula I used: (Salt amount corrected see text below)
1 kg of turkey
100 g water
16.25 g salt
19 g sugar (I used dark brown as it was what I had on hand)
2.75 g Cure #1
Mixed the salt, sugar and cure #1 in very hot water until all components are dissolved.
Put cure mix in freezer to chill.
Inject breast with chilled cure mixture.
Placed breast in vac seal bag and into the fridge for 2 days.
Removed breast from vac bag and soaked in water for 1 hour.
Place some butter under the skin.
Added some Harry Soo's chicken rub to the skin and let the breast dry out a bit while I got Sarina hot.
Smoked the turkey breast with Pit Boss Fruit wood blend pellets at 225 F to an IT of 165 F
Pulled, covered, and in the fridge over night.
The turkey breast was moist and delicious. I was quite impressed for this being my first attempt at a smoked turkey. It was like the best turkey sandwich meat I ever tasted.
I may adjust the salt down a bit next time as the salt content wasn't bad or overpowering, I just want a bit less salt next go around.
My mistake was not subtracting the weight of the cure from the salt so my end salt concentration was a bit higher than I usually shoot for. I corrected that in my formula above.
The skin was rubbery and pretty much a throw away but was expecting that.
I have no pics to share of this unfortunately.
I am thinking that this smoked turkey would make the most amazing Kentucky Hot Brown.
Thanks to everyone on the forum who provided me guidance and insight into getting this done. I will certainly be doing this again. So delicious.....
JC
