Butterball pierces skin over breast meat


 
Chris Allingham

Chris Allingham

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A common technique recommended by Cook's Illustrated and others to achieve better skin over breast meat is to use a skewer to poke 4-5 holes in the skin. This allows fat to render and escape from under the skin.

Today I smoked an after-Thanksgiving Butterball turkey and noticed that they'd done the work for me. There are three small slits in the skin over each breast. I'd never noticed this before...I wonder when they started doing this?
 
Butterball turkeys are injected with a brine solution. If I was a betting man, I would guess those holes are from some type of mechanical device that injects the turkeys in the breast at the factory with this solution.
 
You know what...I like your answer better than mine. I bet those are just injection sites for solution.

Sometimes I over-think things. Never mind. :)
 
I recently started piercing chicken parts before brinning or marinating. I HAVE noticed a major improvement in crispness of the skin.
I do "Hot and Fast" chicken as per Chris' article. That method has definitely increased the quality of my chicken products...

I use one of those small "meat tenderizers" but you could do about the same with a sharp paring knife (just jab it through the skin and down into the meat just a bit). Here's what I am using:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00FKE67V2/tvwb-20

I don't know why it wouldn't work just the same for Turkey...

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 
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