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Turkey Breast Trial Cook for Thanksgiving 2004Here’s what I did: Bought
2 fresh bone-in turkey breasts that were enhanced 3% solution ~ One was about
4.9 lbs, the other just over 5. I used the smaller breast for this cook.
Even though it was labeled fresh, it was semi-frozen and it had to go
into the brine that night. Did the
cold running water routine for a couple of hours but the center was still frozen
when it was to go into the brine. I
used the Apple Juice / Honey Brine shown on Chris A.’s site (
http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/turkey5.html
) and used the ¾ cup Morton Kosher Salt option. The rest of the
instructions were followed as well except as noted.
The breast fit perfectly in my Coleman Personal 8 (6-pack) cooler with
the brine. I mixed the brine with room temp ingredients hoping that the
semi-frozen breast would get the brine temp under 40° in
less than 4 hours. I had to add a
Zip-lock of ice and stir a lot to help get the temp down.
The breast brined for about 12 ½ hours, rinsed it well, dried and
started the air-dry, which lasted about 8 hours.
Rubbed ½ of the breast with olive oil and Texas BBQ Rub #2 (Brisket
Blend) and left the other half dry. Fired
up 1 Weber chimney of Humphrey’s lump and poured it over another chimney of
unlit Hump lump. Put the breast on,
wired it up, put the lid on and threw a foil pouch of Sugar Maple Pellets from
Candy Sue (actually, I got them from Les Y. during SmokeStock, and he had
purchased them from Candy) and then threw a half handful of extra pellets on the
fire and shut the door. Had trouble
getting and keeping the temp up. It
got to 275° pretty quickly but barely got to 300 from there, and that was with the
Guru going full time and the damper was at about 50%. I opened the damper to
approx 75% in an attempt to raise the temp but it wasn’t to be.
It held around 275 to 285°
but in the end, that was just fine.
Exactly 2 hours later, I pulled the breast off at 160°
(both sides read 160°) and lightly covered in foil, breast meat side
up, for 30 minutes. The breast was
just starting to get a little dry on the outside but the flavor was
unbelievable. The un-rubbed side
was sweet and moist. The rubbed
side was sweet, moist and had a good bite to it.
The skin wasn’t crispy but was edible and very flavorful.
On
Thanksgiving, I did pretty much the same thing except, I brined for 8 hours, air
dried for 12 hours, rubbed the whole breast with olive oil and Brisket Blend,
lit 2 chimneys of Hump lump, and rested the breast meat side down.
That breast went a couple of degrees over but the “rest” saved the
day! It was even better than the
trial turkey breast. Both
are great on sandwiches but the skin needs to be removed in my opinion.
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