7.5 lb bone in turkey breast

I don't have an "exact" answer on a TB. I don't do that many of them.

A 3% bird is fine to brine.

I'd do it 12 to 18 hours. I do whole birds for 2 days and everyone loves them, so I'm leaning more to 24 hours for a 7 to 10 lb breast.

Real KEY to brining is determining what works for you. I know it's not the answer you want, but if you're really worried, I'd run a test run.

The amount of brine time also will depend on the rub and how they taste together (if someone says a brined bird is salty, that's usually the culprite -- rub/brine relationship)

I agree with you, Smokin. When I smoke turkey breasts, I do it for 24 hours and am using Shake's Honey Brine.

I usually smoke mine at 250-275. They don't pick up a real heavy smoke but it probably would not hurt to smoke at a lower temp. Since there is TenderQuick in Shake's recipe, don't whether is in Smokin's recipe, I am not concerned about any bacterial growth in the lower temps.

I brine 7.5-8.5 lb turkey breast for about 10-12 hrs. I then smoke/cook them at 220-240 deg in my 009 with about 4 oz wood
They usually take between 5 to 6.5 hrs and have always came out great! Due to low temp of the smokette the skin never really gets too golden and crisp but we don't really eat that anyway.

I used to do a bunch, as gifts,when we could get decent case prices.

They tend to average about 6.5 lbs.

Using Smokin's,or Shake's brine'I'd typically get them in the brine around 8 PM,and be ready to cook around 10-11 AM.

I have also done them for 6-8 hrs,because of the need,and the results didn't seem drastically different.

With the Smokette,running close to max-250º,and about four oz fruitwood,they do well.

I'd guess you can get all the smoke you can stand with an AQ,so I'd practice one and taste it the next day-before adding much more wood.

I've run the 160 from 250º-300º and done fine.

On the FEC,I've run it at 160º for a couple hrs,and then cooked it at 335º to finish.

The brining gives a lot of latitude,about your approach.

All of them seem to improve with a couple days of chilling,but that is probably from me being away from the cookers.

With the brine/injections,they still can squeeze out juice when we slice them.

Hope this helps a little.

Thanks for all the responses.

Axel, I was reading one of your posts from September in which you were trying to get more smoke penetration in poultry. I have the same problem with most things I smoke and was wondering if you figured out how to get better smoke penetration in your poultry?

Thanks.

Brett

quote:

Originally posted by B.Tatton:
Thanks for all the responses.

Axel, I was reading one of your posts from September in which you were trying to get more smoke penetration in poultry. I have the same problem with most things I smoke and was wondering if you figured out how to get better smoke penetration in your poultry?


Not really. As I posted before I am bale to get more smoke into the poultry if I remove the skin but always leads to a real tough surface. I think that I am used to over smoked stuff anyway. On butts and beef shoulders I use a lot of wood and then make sure that the bark is chopped up and added to the pulled portion. On Turkey I found that if I leave some skin (even though it isn't browned much) on the slices it adds just the right amount of smoke.

Thanks.

Brett

Curious,as the problem is usually how to not oversmoke poultry.

Some folks even resort to cooking poultry in paper bags,to reduce the probability of oversmoking.

Others,use no wood,and let the carryover seasoning from the cooker provide the smoke flavor.

How are you cooking poultry that you have trouble achieving smoke flavoring?

I'd think you could toss eight oz of hickory in your AQ,cook up a couple large roasters at 200* and even your neighbor's dog couldn't eat it for the smoke.