Turkey update/Lessons Learned

civil eggineer · December 2008

I cooked a 17.5 lb turkey on my medium egg yesterday. Platesetter - legs up, drip pan and grill on top. The turkey was trussed and the fit was snug. Cooked at around 350 dome with wood chips until breast hit 170.

Results: skin was very blackened. Probably a result of the wood smoke and may have to do with the 4 day dry salt brining technique. Breast was very good and moist. Thighs and wings did not get done (internal temp around 160) possibly due to the trussing effect. I pre-chilled the breast with ice water bags for 20 minuted prior to cooking with little drop in breast temp. I believe the breast finished to soon because of it sitting high in the dome. If I would have cooked breast side down might have corrected this but don't think the bird would have fit in the egg.

Lessons learned: will only cook smaller turkeys in future (12 lbs) and probably not use wood chips if final apperance is critical. Might ice breasts for longer period of time (2 hrs?) prior to cooking.

Inksmyth · December 2008

I iced breasts for 30 mins after taking the bird from the fridge. The temp difference was 6 degs.
I don't know how much this would have affected the outcome due to turkey cremation problems :blink:

The Naked Whiz · December 2008

I doubt the salt-brining had anything to do with it. When I cooked the plain, wet-brined, and dry-brined breasts side by side, the dry-brined breast seemed to have the least dark skin.

Celtic Wolf · December 2008

Use a Foil tent the next time. It prevents the skin from getting too dark until you are ready for it.

Ohh and Baste often..

I would have not used the grate and went with a v-rack or some kind of rack with the turkey siting in a roaster. Roaster elevated off the plate setter an inch or so.

Try this the next time - Mad Max Turkey

stike · December 2008

untrussed and with no icing, my legs finish same time as the breast...

not as photogenic, i admit. one of the reasons for trussing the bird is uniform cooking. i don't WANT uniform cooking. hahaha i want the legs to get done at a different rate

AZRP · December 2008

I don't truss mine either, I think it prevents the heat from getting into the thighs. -RP

fishlessman · December 2008

something you can try is lighting the egg towards the rear of the cooker at start up and placing the legs toward the back of the egg where its hotter. its an old julia childs trick in the oven, ovens are usually hotter in the back than the front. there is a tendency, due to where the handles on the pan, to place the bird left to right, but there is no reason for that.

jeffinsgf · December 2008

Thanks, guys. Mine was trussed tightly, and my thighs were not as well done as I would have liked. No more trussing for me.

stike · December 2008

zackly. doesn't look pretty, but why would i want to bind the things that need cooking longest to a mass which will only slow them down?

Golfnut · December 2008

I cooked our 14lb turkey untrussed with the same setup as you did and it was nearly inedible. Breast meat was dried out.
I iced the breast's for an hour. After about 2 hours at 325° the breast meat and the thigh meat were the same temperature. I took the turkey off when the thigh meat hit 173°. I won't cook another one with that method.
Next time I'm going to try breast side down and see if that makes a difference,if not then I'll try vertical roasting and maybe direct.

fishlessman · December 2008

take that bird off the egg at 162/165 breast temp and you will see a huge improvement. upsidedown does work but makes a lousy presentation, a way around this is to start the bird upsidedown and then flip it halfway thru the cook to brown the skin on the breast. back in college we used to cook about twenty birds at a time, a couple for presentation and the rest upsidedown , the upsidedown ones would litterally fall apart makeing the slicing extremely easy.

Golfnut · December 2008

If I would have took the bird off when the breast was 165 the thighs would have been the same temp. Would the thighs have been done at 165? The ice trick did not work for me.

stike · December 2008

sounds like you had the turkey pretty high up in the dome. the hot gasses from the fire will come up the dome and out the chimney. lower down, you get some radiant heat from the dome, and a lot of convection air. but i think higher up, the gasses which run along the dome also come into play, and they are much hotter than dome temp.

just a guess.

fishlessman · December 2008

i do the ice trick, and put the legs toward the rear of the cooker, seems to help as its hotter back there and i make a point to light off center towards the back of the egg to make it hotter. i dont put the bird in the pan, its raised above and i dont have a problem. at 165 it will rise into the 170 range sitting on the counter anyways, yours may have rised up into the 180's on the counter while resting. ive taken the bird off the egg in the upper 150's and its a little bit too tender, almost seems under cooked, but from what ive seen, its still safe to eat, middle 160's is better to pull the bird at for texture

TomM24 · December 2008

CE:

I think you may have had the reverse problem from mine. I did and 8 pound bird placestter legs up some foil balls and a pan and V rack. My bird was very low in the egg and the skin did not brown well. I did not brine this year . last year a 14 pound bird brined one day same setup had beautifully brown skin. I think you may have been to high in the egg.

Golfnut · December 2008

Are you saying you take your bird off when the thigh meat reaches 165°?

Thanks

Turkey update/Lessons Learned

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