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G

Gary Hodgin

TVWBB Super Fan
I'm smoking a ready-to-eat ham (using a honey glazed recipe) and a couple of boneless turkey breasts on Saturday for a Sunday dinner at 1:00.

My plan is to foil and refrigerate the turkey and ham and then heat at 170 in the oven to an internal temp of around 130 before serving on Sunday. I want to know if this sounds okay and whether I need to slice on Saturday after resting the ham and turkeys for 30 minutes or so or whether I should slice on Sunday after heating. Recommendations?

P.S. I'm planning to smoke the ham and breasts separately. The recipe calls for the ham to be smoked at 210-225 to an internal temp of 135. I'll smoke the turkey at 275-300 to an internal temp of 165-170. I'll use a couple of chucks of cherry and a couple of apple. The ham (Hormel) is a little over 5 lbs and the breasts are about 3 lb each (self-basting, Butterballs). I plan to cook the ham first and then the breasts. I'm doing them separately because of the differences in the cooking temps.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Russell Y:
I prefer slicing after reheating over slicing than reheating. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Agreed.

Although they may heat up quicker having been sliced, more evaporation will occur and it will be drier because of more surface area exposed to the (re)heating.
 
Thanks, I was a little worried about it drying out if sliced earlier then reheated. My wife's baking a big bone-in ham and more turkey in the oven on Saturday and I was trying to avoid so much carving/slicing on Sunday between church and 1:00. Guess I need to go to early service.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">My plan is to foil and refrigerate the turkey and ham and then heat at 170 in the oven to an internal temp of around 130 before serving on Sunday. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Too high for the ham, not high enough for the turkey.

Both should be cooled before foiling.


If the ham is ready-to-eat is shouldn't go much over 120 at the first heating, and no higher during reheat. (Me, I'd slice before reheating.)

I usually slice turkey as well, before reheating. It's a much quicker reheat because it can be done on top of the stove - my preference for this, as well as for the ham.

If you decide to go the oven route take the turkey to 145-155. 170 is rather low and will take quite a while. Higher temps mean shorter reheat times but one runs the risk of overheating the exterior befor the interior gets hot. This is why I prefer top-of-stove reheating for turkey breast and ham.

Drying out comes from overheating.
 
Kevin - when you are re-aheating on the stove top (sliced) as you mention, it's in a bath/liquid else in a vac sealed bag in a pot of water until it comes up to desired temp?

When I do this I like to vac seal the product and place it in a pot of water and then bring it up to temp slowly. I'll typically bring the water up to 140 or so and leave there for a while.

Without using the vac sealed method, I'll place the sliced product in a bath of some sort (au jux, etc) and bring it up to temp slowly.



Either in the oven or the stove top.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Without using the vac sealed method, I'll place the sliced product in a bath of some sort (au jux, etc) and bring it up to temp slowly. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Ditto. Unless I have a lot of product I use the stovetop. The liquid (jus, stock, good quality bouillon with a little butter added, etc.) never reaches a simmer - it only just barely steams.
 
I find a useful "crutch" for me in these situations where I am trying to control the temps to a rather low level is a reasonably inexpensive Infrared Therm. Has been worth every cent since I bought one. Use it for deep frying, slow warm ups, fridge temps, etc. It's almost as useful as the instant read thermometer.

Case in point. Son is home and wanting some of my pulled pork. Take some out of the freezer in the vac seal (HD zip locks work great if you need to portion out), set the oven at 250 deg take a small DO down and fill with water and the bag of pork, trivet on top for weight. Every now and then slide out the rack and check the water temp with the gun until I see 140 degrees of water temp for a period of time long enough that tells me the packet is heated through. You can point it at the bag and you will see the difference between water temp and the bag of product. Very convenient.

If I have larger sizes, once I see water temp at 140 I will back the oven temp down to maintain the same water temp.

The infrared therm makes this an easy check. Busy in conversation in the meantime - I just set the time to beep and remind me to come back and check, etc.

In this case the PP is already flavored and set up when packed away. Remove from the vac/zip toss with a knob of butter and a little Carolina style sauce then away you go. Back to the game.
 
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