Cooking Capacity - Brined Turkey Breast


 
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Mark Orlovsky

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I need to smoke 4 brined turkey breasts for a company holiday meal next Monday. I was planning on doing 2 breasts on Saturday and 2 on Sunday.
Could I do all 4 on Saturday? If so, what will that do to my cooking time and available heat?

Also if I do 2 seperate days can I use the brine twice or do I need a fresh batch of brine for each day?

Mark
 
Mark,
Once you have the heat regulated the way you want it it probably won't have much effect on the cook time. As long they will all fit on the grates and not touch ,they could all be done at once. I think that the turkey is better just out of the cooker(Although it still pretty darn good cold.). good luck /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
 
Mark
For Thanksgiving I did 4 turkey breasts on one WSM. They averaged about 6 pounds each in size. I used the dry pan method and used a combination of Kingsford and lump charcoal and cooked them for about 3 hours+ at about 325F. The top ones got done a bit before the lower ones. I cooked them to an internal temp of 170F. Note I am a big fan of injection so I used melted butter with a hint of garlic salt and rubbed the outside with olive oil and topped with butter and sprinkling of McCormicks Montreal for Chicken (including the cavity)

We ate part of them that day and the rest over the following few days. Moist and tasty over the whole time period, but best on the day they were cooked

Note that I find it works for me to open the door (occasionally)for a few minutes on the WSM to initially get those coals going hot or near the end when the coals are dying down. Four birds is a lot of meat to get up to temp and get the WSM to settle down. Apple was my choice of wood

Hope this helps--
 
Hi Mark,
I just cooked 200 pounds of brined turkey breast.
You can fit 4 on a grate so 8 per cooker it's snug but it works.
They were kissing but turned out great.
I cooked them to 155 and let them rest
and come up to 160(safe temp).
They took 3-4 hours at or around 250.
That's what I know.
John in Seattle
 
/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif Well I did 4 turkey breasts on Saturday. No problem fitting them all in. My only problem was I got interupted while I was bringing the smoker to temp. and I never hit my desired operating temp. of 350 degrees. I never got higher that 300 and most of the time stayed at 250.
But, they still turned out great. I am serving them in 10 minutes. Smell great.

Mark
 
Suggestions -

Open the lower vents more. More air = more heat
Add more lit briquettes.

I did an 8lb turkey brest, bone-in recently and had no problems maintaining 325. I also used an empty, foil-lined water pan as well.

If you used water and/or sand, the "heat-sink" would suck up your heat, instead of having higher temps available to you.

smoking a turkey breast
 
I opened the bottom for more air but added unlit Kingsford. Then I had to leave for a Christmas party so I was not there for the end of the smoke.
I trusted my 19 year old son to finish. Which he did just fine.
Sort of a way to get him involved.

Will probably do this again next week for New Years.

Mark
 
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