Why shorter turkey cooks instead of low and slow?


 
MatthewS

MatthewS

TVWBB Member
I can't wait to do a turkey for the first time this year. Will probably do a practice run before Thanksgiving. I'm wondering why the turkey recipes I see are all in the 2-3 hour range instead of the typical 8-12 hours for other food (like the delicious pork butt I did yesterday). Curious to hear the reasons/options.
 
I don't think so. Turkey meat isn't really that tough. Also, poultry can get over-smoked pretty easily. I try to cook it at 325-350 which can be hard to achieve on a WSM. Generally though, the consensus is that smaller birds cooked hot and fast work well. In all honesty though, I've never nailed the perfect skin. If I have, I've wound up having to hold the bird for other things to get done and the skin got messed up anyway.
 
The first time I smoked a turkey, I did a lot of reading online and read that something to do with the structure of the muscle of a turkey (apologies for not remembering the terminology) was such that, unlike a brisket, cooking it low and slow doesn't really provide any more tenderness than using higher temps for shorter times. Since then, whether it's been on smoke or in my dutch oven, I've always used higher temps with great results.
 
You can cook a turkey at a lower temp if you want to. That is one of many techniques people use to keep the breast from drying out. But you will have limp skin. So you either dispense with the skin or you have to do some high heat (like a finish under the broiler) to crisp the skin.

The low/slow for tenderness thing (pork shoulder, brisket, ribs) doesn't apply to turkey white meat. For pork shoulder and brisket, you have a very tough piece of meat that (due to extensive connective tissue) would be unappetizing if cooked to a normal medium temp of 140-150F internal or so. But if you cook it WAY beyond well done (200F internal temp) the connective tissue melts and you go from shoe leather to that magic tender. A turkey breast cooked to 200F would be awful. Anything past 160F is going to be dry.

You do get some of the high internal/tender effect with tougher turkey dark meat. 180-185F internal melts the dark meat connective tissue. Hence the whole challenge of turkey cooking. How to cook the dark meat correctly while not over-cooking the white? That's why I always cook my turkey in separate parts.

I often cook a bone in turkey breast in the crock pot slow cooker. Very easy and comes out super juicy due to the super moist braising environment. And the low cooking temp gives you a lot of margin for error to avoid over-cooking the breast. Sou vide would do the same thing. But the skin is a rubbery as all get out.
 
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Also, the best low and slow meats have a high level of intramuscular fat. Turkey does not have that. Best smoked at higher temps.
 
Plan on roughly 30 minutes a Lb if going 225-250 deg F. A 13# would take around 7-8 hrs or 180 in the thigh.
Truly smoked turkey is wonderful, so moist and juicy, and I think that the rubbery skin actually helps retain moisture.
You should try one for practice. Breast meat sliced and pull the dark and mix with BBQ sauce.
 
Do it at 250 and forget about the skin, it will never come out perfect smoked. It’s better to season UNDER the skin and just discard the skin to the dogs after, the fat in it keeps the meat moist though.
 
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