Fillmore Farmer
Knows what a fatty is.
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2014
- Location
- Fillmore, CA and Woodland Hills, CA
So I took advantage of post TK-day pricing and bought me a whole bunch of turkeys for cheap. Most these birds were upwards of 26 pounds but at $15/each it seemed like a good idea to stock-up the freezer.
So over the last month I've been trying to perfect a turkey recipe. I borrowed most my recipe out of a book and some videos on YouTube but here's the approach:
Brine turkey for 3 full days in frig....1-cup salt, 1.5-cup brown sugar, lots of seasoning. Stir/agitate twice each day. I don't think you can over-brine, my buddy goes a full 5 days and his turkey is great.
Pull from brine, pat dry. I then Spatchcock (Butterfly) the bird. I do something daring: I remove the skin! Why? Because a smoker gives rubbery skin and everyone I know doesn't eat the skin for health purposes so I wanted to build a bark right on the meat! I baste heavily with oil/butter and apply rub. I also injected with unsalted sweet butter, olive oil and seasoning.
Into the smoker, with cherry wood, at 265F and start basting/spraying after an hour. Once the breast turn brown I cover with foil. It took about 3 hours but out came the most moist, succulent and delicious turkey I've ever had!!!!
So proud was I that I invited 5 friends to buy turkeys and come over for what I called my first annual Turkey Cook.
Despite my having made my own turkey several times, the results were disappointing. We all followed the same recipe but cook time was MUCH longer. The Vault was at 265F but instead of 3 hours it took over 5 hours to get the smallest turkey up to 165F...all that cook time, despite basting/spraying, resulted in drier meat...nothing like the super-moist stuff I made on my own. I mean, the guys were happy and it was good...but not great..I was a bit embarrassed and found myself apologizing.:roll:
So what's the deal with cooking in bulk? I thought I had read that when you have more briskets in the smoker the results are generally better? Also, if the smoker was at 265F and it maintained that, then why did it take almost twice as long to cook all these birds????
One other thing I realized is that with all these big birds butterflied I had the racks REALLY full....we loaded 2 birds on each rack and filled 3 whole racks. The top rack didn't have enough clearance to the top of the smoker and I let the bottom rack hold 2 huge water pans full of water...but yeah, those 3 racks were like 92% packed so heat flow may have been impaired. When we opened the door the whole Vault appeared full of smoke everywhere.
I'm just kinda baffled here. I understand I went from 25 pounds of meat to 200 pounds of meat so there was more mass to heat-up...but doing a 25# bird alone took me about 3 hours and on this day my bird was the biggest at 28# and it took nearly 7 hours.....by the time the heat managed to get to 165F deep inside the breast, the outer meat was dry, over-cooked and just overly exposed to heat/time. Based on this I'm thinking I should really stick with sub-20# birds, these BIG birds are the birds that nobody buys because experienced chefs know better and only suckers who think they're getting big value pop for these jolly giants!
I mean, tell me it ain't true...how you gonna get enough heat deep into the center of a thick breast without over-doing the outer meat? I think the lesson learned it to stick with smaller birds, keep it under 23# or even 20#
But yeah, anyone have any thoughts on why doing more meat takes dramatically longer if you still maintain the same temp? Any thoughts or insight would be appreciated.
On another note, it was really fun getting a whole bunch of guys together to do a group smoking and everyone went home with some good meat for their families. Results were fair to good but I was shooting for amazing (aren't we all?)
I've included pics of turkeys loaded into my trunk, ingredients for the brine (salt & sugar not shown), my BBQ area and the Vault. Sorry, no pics of the birds on racks or in smoker...or finished product. I promise more in future!
So over the last month I've been trying to perfect a turkey recipe. I borrowed most my recipe out of a book and some videos on YouTube but here's the approach:
Brine turkey for 3 full days in frig....1-cup salt, 1.5-cup brown sugar, lots of seasoning. Stir/agitate twice each day. I don't think you can over-brine, my buddy goes a full 5 days and his turkey is great.
Pull from brine, pat dry. I then Spatchcock (Butterfly) the bird. I do something daring: I remove the skin! Why? Because a smoker gives rubbery skin and everyone I know doesn't eat the skin for health purposes so I wanted to build a bark right on the meat! I baste heavily with oil/butter and apply rub. I also injected with unsalted sweet butter, olive oil and seasoning.
Into the smoker, with cherry wood, at 265F and start basting/spraying after an hour. Once the breast turn brown I cover with foil. It took about 3 hours but out came the most moist, succulent and delicious turkey I've ever had!!!!
So proud was I that I invited 5 friends to buy turkeys and come over for what I called my first annual Turkey Cook.
Despite my having made my own turkey several times, the results were disappointing. We all followed the same recipe but cook time was MUCH longer. The Vault was at 265F but instead of 3 hours it took over 5 hours to get the smallest turkey up to 165F...all that cook time, despite basting/spraying, resulted in drier meat...nothing like the super-moist stuff I made on my own. I mean, the guys were happy and it was good...but not great..I was a bit embarrassed and found myself apologizing.:roll:
So what's the deal with cooking in bulk? I thought I had read that when you have more briskets in the smoker the results are generally better? Also, if the smoker was at 265F and it maintained that, then why did it take almost twice as long to cook all these birds????
One other thing I realized is that with all these big birds butterflied I had the racks REALLY full....we loaded 2 birds on each rack and filled 3 whole racks. The top rack didn't have enough clearance to the top of the smoker and I let the bottom rack hold 2 huge water pans full of water...but yeah, those 3 racks were like 92% packed so heat flow may have been impaired. When we opened the door the whole Vault appeared full of smoke everywhere.
I'm just kinda baffled here. I understand I went from 25 pounds of meat to 200 pounds of meat so there was more mass to heat-up...but doing a 25# bird alone took me about 3 hours and on this day my bird was the biggest at 28# and it took nearly 7 hours.....by the time the heat managed to get to 165F deep inside the breast, the outer meat was dry, over-cooked and just overly exposed to heat/time. Based on this I'm thinking I should really stick with sub-20# birds, these BIG birds are the birds that nobody buys because experienced chefs know better and only suckers who think they're getting big value pop for these jolly giants!
I mean, tell me it ain't true...how you gonna get enough heat deep into the center of a thick breast without over-doing the outer meat? I think the lesson learned it to stick with smaller birds, keep it under 23# or even 20#
But yeah, anyone have any thoughts on why doing more meat takes dramatically longer if you still maintain the same temp? Any thoughts or insight would be appreciated.
On another note, it was really fun getting a whole bunch of guys together to do a group smoking and everyone went home with some good meat for their families. Results were fair to good but I was shooting for amazing (aren't we all?)
I've included pics of turkeys loaded into my trunk, ingredients for the brine (salt & sugar not shown), my BBQ area and the Vault. Sorry, no pics of the birds on racks or in smoker...or finished product. I promise more in future!
