Smoked Turkey Breast

[Dale Groetsema]

Just wanted to share my experience today with smoking a turkey breast (with skin and bone) on the WSM. Started with about a 7lb breast(not sure of exact weight, remembered how much I paid for it and about how much per pound).

Used the apple-brined recipe overnight for about 22 hours. After brining, rinsed turkey, dried it, spread olive oil over the skin, sprinkled lemon pepper on the skin surface and let it set at room temp for about one hour.

Fired up the WSM with half the charcoal ring full and 15 hot coals. Got up to 250 pretty quickly, added 1 gallon cold water, 4 chunks of hickory, one chunk of cherry.

Kept all vents open below. Basted with apple juice after 2 hours, took it off at 4 hour mark--polder was reading 155 degrees. Temp at stayed around 240-250 throughout the cook.

Let it set for 20 minutes before carving. Outside 5-6 slices were perfect, saw one or two "red" spots as I got closer to the bone.

Outcome-tender, juicy (almost needed a bib), and except for innermost slices, was done to perfection. Cut easily with a fork. I through the bone and inner slices into a 350 oven for 15 minutes to finish cooking the meat and sliced leftovers for turkey salad. Yummy.

Only real downside was skin was rubbery--as seems to be my experience with poultry.

Thanks for all the tips that I have been able to put to good use.

Dale

 

[Guest]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dale Groetsema:
[qb]Only real downside was skin was rubbery--as seems to be my experience with poultry.[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Try cranking up the heat and roasting turkey at 325 to 350 for a shorter amount of time. I've never had "rubbery" skin on a turkey; it always turns out crispy and golden brown that way -- except for the times I've used way too much smoke and charred it black.

I'm not sure what effect brining may have on the texture of the skin. Ideally, poultry skin should be bone dry for the crispiest texture. The Chinese use fans to dry their ducks for that reason.

Turkey skin does seem to benefit from basting. Given that and the higher temperatures, you may want to consider running your water pan empty and putting a little foil drip pan on top of it to collect fat to baste with -- although you aren't going to get much fat from a turkey breast.

If you ever have trouble with parts of the turkey getting too dark, you can wrap turkey in cheesecloth (moistened with some melted butter) and baste right through that -- although I don't think it will be necessary on a WSM with no direct heat.