Smoked Turkey Breast

Smoked Turkey Breast - First Attempt

2018 Thanksgiving has come and gone. Rather than roast an entire turkey in the house oven this year I decided on smoking a pair of frozen turkey breasts.  I picked up a pair of frozen turkey breasts at Costco in Wilsonville Oregon after word one day.  They were each approximately 4-1/2 pounds but I didn't take a picture or record the particular details of the breasts.  I placed the two turkey breasts in our Frigidaire freezer until it got closer to Thanksgiving.  I placed the two breasts in the garage refrigerator 2-1/2 days before Thanksgiving.  The breasts were nicely thawed by Thanksgiving eve with just a little ice left.   Since it was late at night and I was also making a batch of Lime Jello Salad, I decided to put the turkey breasts in a brine solution over night.

Brine Recipe

• About 1 gallon of tap water
• 2/3 cup kosher salt
• 2/3 cut dark brown sugar
• Couple of tablespoons of ground rosemary and garlic powder
• Couple of tablespoons of peppercorns.

Turkey breasts in brine

I placed  all of the above in a 1-1/2 gallon food save container and stirred until all of the salt and brown sugar were dissolved.   Once done I placed the  container in my kitchen sink and then placed the turkey breasts in the container.  The first one went in without any issues.  The second breast caused the brine to overflow the container which was fine.  I poured a little more off so I could transport the container to the extra refrigerator we have in our garage.  There the two breast sat from around 9:30PM Thanksgiving eve until 10:30AM.

Breasts seasoned and ready for the smoker

On Thanksgiving day the breasts were pulled from the brine and placed on an aluminum pan and seasoned with a little cracked pepper and a light dusting with paprika. 

Smoke Tube Lighting

Torched used to start the smoke tube.

While the turkey was coming up to room temperature I got the Green Maintain Daniel Boone grilled fired up with Maple wood pellets.  While the smoker was getting started and coming up to temperature I stuffed the A-Maze-N smoke tube with maple pellets and lit the tube using a torch.  The smoke tube added what seems like a huge amount of extra smoke to the process.  There is no obvious way to measure this but the stack on the grill seems to be producing smoke at a much higher rate than normal.  

Once the smoke tube was burning well, the flame was blown out and the tube was placed in the back of the grill behind the turkey breasts.  Each breast was monitored by 

a separate thermometer.  The one on the right was connected to the grill electronics and the one on the left was an Ikea food thermometer.  I really like the extra thermometers I have from Ikea.  They don't always agree precisely with the Green Mountain grill - or vice versa - but the data provides enough information to make good cooking decisions.   I set the initial smoking temperature to 190.  This went on for about 3-1/2 hours until the internal temperature of the meat reached 145.  At that point I increased the temperature to 320 degrees and let the process finish until the meat reached 160 degrees.

Here is a picture of the turkey after about 1 hour of cooking.  Notice the progress of the smoke tube.

About an hour into the process

After another hour, you can see the transformation.

About half way there

Here is another image where the smoke tube is done and the turkey is about 15-20 degrees from done.

Turkey Near Completion

Results

The turkey was very juicy and tasted very good.  There was a distinct smoke ring around the edges of the meat.  The brine didn't make the meat overly salty.  

One think that was very challenging to deal with is the netting that turkey breasted started out in.  Next attempt I will remove the netting either after the first hour or replace it at the start with far less cotton string to hold the shape of the roast.