Stall when cooking turkey


 
T

Tom Raveret

TVWBB Pro
So I have been cooking a 13 lb hen turkey on the rotisserie this afternoon. Honeysukle white from Costco fresh bird. I have stalled at 155 and its taken an hour and a half to get the breast over 160. I've added coals twice and its windy here so some of my heat may be bleeding off from that. Never expereinced this while cooking a bird and need to get it to 165 to be safe to eat per the instructions..
 
I mean the breast is huge on this thing It was just in the deepest part of the breast that i was having problems. I just hit temp and pulled it off we'll see how it tastes. I wish we could find poultry bred for flavor in the US... the chicken i had in France was sooooo much better than anything I've had here
 
I'm sure the "stall" will happen when cooking nearly any protein though likely more prominent based on things like density and the like. Just went through it tonight with daughter and SIL. Bird stalled a while at 140 or so
 
Yes, I've experienced stalls on chicken and turkey - especially if you're cooking low and slow in the 225 range. If you're cooking at 325 like I think most people do, you probably won't notice a stall.

One other thing - most people don't know this, but you don't have to go to 165 or even 160. You don't even have to go to 150. Or 140. You can actually pull the bird in the 130s and it's perfectly safe. And this is straight from the USDA. Because, as everybody keeps telling us, cooking is about temp AND TIME. So this can work in your favor if you're cooking a bird low and slow and it stalls.

Check it out. Study table 4.

 
Mark_E said:
Yes, I've experienced stalls on chicken and turkey - especially if you're cooking low and slow in the 225 range. If you're cooking at 325 like I think most people do, you probably won't notice a stall.

One other thing - most people don't know this, but you don't have to go to 165 or even 160. You don't even have to go to 150. Or 140. You can actually pull the bird in the 130s and it's perfectly safe. And this is straight from the USDA. Because, as everybody keeps telling us, cooking is about temp AND TIME. So this can work in your favor if you're cooking a bird low and slow and it stalls.

Check it out. Study table 4.

Click to expand...
Probably why I've never seen it. Whether on the rotisserie, indirect charcoal or the pellet pooper, 325 to 375 is what I cool poultry at.
 
We even saw the small stall last night on my daughter's bird (a fresh Hoka brand). Again it's not a stall like you see doing a brisket or a pork butt but yeah it was still there. I've yet to see one happen on a chicken. It likely does but chickens being as a rule much smaller likely just push through before you notice
 
Mark_E said:
Yes, I've experienced stalls on chicken and turkey - especially if you're cooking low and slow in the 225 range. If you're cooking at 325 like I think most people do, you probably won't notice a stall.

One other thing - most people don't know this, but you don't have to go to 165 or even 160. You don't even have to go to 150. Or 140. You can actually pull the bird in the 130s and it's perfectly safe. And this is straight from the USDA. Because, as everybody keeps telling us, cooking is about temp AND TIME. So this can work in your favor if you're cooking a bird low and slow and it stalls.

Check it out. Study table 4.

Click to expand...
so butterball was saying 185 for breast and thigh last year 165 for breast and that was a difficult task to achieve unless when the breast is done I would cut off the breast and put the thighs in the oven. this honeysyuckle was saying 165 thighs and breast. Thanks for this I find it interesting. I'm not a fan of poultry here since i was spoiled in Paris. The taste is so much better. I can get sick from undercooked poultry pretty easily and even more easily from handling raw poultry and not being careful enough.

It was a very windy day and it was being stubborn to get to 165 deep in the breast and it finally. It was pretty tasty. love the fresh birds and when I'm cheap costco is a good value. Best birds I ever cooked were from whole foods Larry Shultz farms from Minnesota organic free range... thats the closest ive found to what good turkey tastes like but still no comparison to France for me
 
Yes, I've experienced stalls on chicken and turkey - especially if you're cooking low and slow in the 225 range. If you're cooking at 325 like I think most people do, you probably won't notice a stall.

Any large piece of meat will stall under the right conditions. Where the moisture "sweating" out of the meat causes evaporative cooling. Which keeps the meat from gaining temperature (for a while at least) at a low/slow cooking temp.

Turkey is pretty lean. And most people cook it at a roasting temp much higher than the low/slow temps that line up with evaporative cooling. So the stall conditions do not occur very often when cooking turkeys.

Those conditions almost always happen when cooking briskets or pork shoulders.
 
timothy said:
One of the first turkeys I smoked was on an ECB (El Cheapo Brinkman) water smoker.

Man, that thing took forever.

Tasted great but trying to dial that thing in on a cold windy day was useless.
Click to expand...
My first "smoker" I bought several of the charcoal "bins" for it and as I would lose temp, I would fire up another bin and put the smoker over the freshly lit bin. Otherwise, temp drop was impossible to overcome
 
timothy said:
One of the first turkeys I smoked was on an ECB (El Cheapo Brinkman) water smoker.

Man, that thing took forever.

Tasted great but trying to dial that thing in on a cold windy day was useless.
Click to expand...
Had a couple of those $34.99 Brinkmans back in the late '80s. They were a pain in the a$$ but did a pretty good job. Wish I would have known you can do just as well on a kettle grill:(
 
ChuckO said:
My first "smoker" I bought several of the charcoal "bins" for it and as I would lose temp, I would fire up another bin and put the smoker over the freshly lit bin. Otherwise, temp drop was impossible to overcome
Click to expand...
Bob Bailey said:
Had a couple of those $34.99 Brinkmans back in the late '80s. They were a pain in the a$$ but did a pretty good job. Wish I would have known you can do just as well on a kettle grill:(
Click to expand...
One of the main reasons I bought the WSM.
Buy the best, cry once.:)
 
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