Lots of conflicting information on bone-in turkey breasts


 
B

Bill Bates

New member
I'm going to do one bone-in breast on T'giving, probably 6-8 pounds, pre-brined. I plan to use dry water pan.

I'm inclined to go hot ≈325°, but the timing seems to be all over the map. 30 mins,/pound for a 7# breast works out to 3:30 cook time. Others say ≈2:30.

What I don't want to do is overcook the sucker. I hate to take the lid off ≈2 hours in and poke it with my ThermoPen, because that will slow things down.

Any advice? I'd like to keep it simple if possible; I'm old.

BB on Daniel Island
 
I think your best bet is to cook to temperature, regardless of chamber temperature. A good remote read probe thermometer will be your friend for this, as you can monitor the temp without opening your grill. You can go as simple as a simple external read model (Thermoworks Chef Alarm,) or head for Bluetooth or WiFi territory for long distance monitoring.
 
Wet brine. 24 hours. Cook at 350° for crispy skin, with a probe at the center. Pull at 155° and rest. Ive done boneless like this and the cook time is around 2.5 hours. With bone in I’d venture 3-3.5 hours. But I wouldn’t cook it without a probe so you don’t jack it up.
 
Hi Bill. I think variability in time is inherent with manual fire management; it's not likely that you're going to dial-in a specific target pit temp without an ATC (and I'm not suggesting that variable temps is a bad thing). I have never smoked a bone-in turkey breast but I've done multiple ones in my Kettle on a rotisserie and times have varied from 2 hours to 3.2 hours because, while possibly targeting 350f, I've had pit temp variances of 300f-360f.

If I didn't have a remote thermometer I would rather remove my lid to probe temperatures rather than using a stopwatch.

(or as I read what I wrote maybe I'm confessing that I don't know how to dial-in a specific temp lol)
 
I treat 'em like whole chickens on the kettle. Indirect, somewhere between 325-400 until the internal temp hits 155 then let 'er rest for ~30 minutes, or so. You really, really, should consider a remote leave-in thermometer. They're not that expensive and more than pay for themselves when you're not over, or under, cooking food.
 
I've always found that bone in breasts cook faster than the stated time in the oven... so you should expect that if you are at the same temp as called for on the package directions. Don't feel bad about lowering the temp some if you have the time to keep it from drying out on the grill/smoker.
 
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