Sous Vide Turkey?

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fragged

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I brew electric indoors, a setup that affords the opportunity to use as Sous Vide for massive items as well.

Just wondering if any of you have done whole turkeys sous vide and what the results were. I'm between that or my deep fry standard and just can't decide.
 
I'm planning to sous vide the turducken I bought. It's not a roll, it's the partially-deboned whole turkey. It's already in a perfectly sealed vacuum bag and I already checked that it will fit in my big roaster oven, which I'll use my DorkFoods controller to keep it at the 147* temp I've decided (websites say anywhere from 141 to 150*) - I'm going to do it overnight, then take out, pat dry, rub with butter and stick it in a hot oven to brown the skin. Hope it turns out well! :)

Just KOTC and me so if it's a total flop we'll go to Arby's for some traditional Greek pitas instead! ;)
 
I've done a lot of sous vide chicken, which for cooking purposes is going to be nearly the same as turkey. The white meat and dark meat is so different that it can't be cooked sous vide together, unless you like super super dry breast or unchewable dark meat.

The breast is best around 145F, while the dark meat needs some time closer to 167-170F.

EDIT: I just read that link. It sounds like a lot more work than turkey is worth but I would expect that to yield something much better than what traditionally lands on the table. The turkey stock step would make ridiculously good gravy.
 
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schematix said:
I've done a lot of sous vide chicken, which for cooking purposes is going to be nearly the same as turkey. The white meat and dark meat is so different that it can't be cooked sous vide together, unless you like super super dry breast or unchewable dark meat.

The breast is best around 145F, while the dark meat needs some time closer to 167-170F.

EDIT: I just read that link. It sounds like a lot more work than turkey is worth but I would expect that to yield something much better than what traditionally lands on the table. The turkey stock step would make ridiculously good gravy.
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Yep I went for it, and to your point - it better be good. It was more work than frying for sure. Compared to roasting though it was about the same, just the work is front loaded vs an oven where your basting it every so often.
 
fragged said:
Yep I went for it, and to your point - it better be good. It was more work than frying for sure. Compared to roasting though it was about the same, just the work is front loaded vs an oven where your basting it every so often.
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According to Cooks Illistrated (IIRC), basting is not effective and even worse than not basting at all.

I'd love to hear how your sous vide turkey turns out. It never occurred to me to try a whole turkey in my kit.
 
passedpawn said:
According to Cooks Illistrated (IIRC), basting is not effective and even worse than not basting at all.

I'd love to hear how your sous vide turkey turns out. It never occurred to me to try a whole turkey in my kit.
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I did end up cutting it up, per the article posted above, as I was worried about fitting it in the bag. Dark meat 24 hours, light 12 hours, due at 4pm. Results will be posted...
 
I've made a couple turkeys with my sous vide. Both used the Chef Steps recipes. They were both freakin' delicious!

Last year I made the completely boneless one with the roulade for the dark meat. The recipe used to be all one sequence that included the light and dark meat. It was very impressive and got great reviews up against the other traditional turkeys at our large family gathering. The de-boning and making the roulade was a TON of work I probably spent close to 2 hours just processing the bird last year.

My kids and I wanted to do a "pre-Thanksgiving" this year so we made a turkey last weekend. This year I parted out the bird but left the bones in. It It was much easier to get ready. I took off each leg and thigh as a whole piece, then just the "crown" of white meat with the wings on. I had a very large vacuum bag that I could fit it in. Processing time was only about 20 minutes.

I cooked the dark meat for 24 hours at 151F, then put the white meat in about 9 hours before dinner at 142.5F. I then took the pieces out and browned them in a 500F oven for about 10 minutes. The results were incredible! If you have the ability to cook turkey this way you would be a fool not to!

142F for the white meat might be a little low for some people. I prefer chicken up at 145-150. I think the white meat would benefit from a few more hours. I would suggest the 24 hours for dark meat at 151, then turn it down to 142-145 and put the white meat in for 12 hours.
 
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Recommend- Take the skin off. Put in sheet pan with something heavy on top to keep it flat. Roast it in oven till its crisp. Hit them with salt/seasoning blend.

Soggy skin is lame. Browning in oven risks drying it out, which defeats the purpose of sous vide.

Turkey chicharrones FTW!
 
Um, ya, this was amazing. Juicy and flavorful(thyme, sage and rosemary added to bags). I forgot to temp probe until about 15 minutes after it came out of the water. Based on that (125f), I seared them to make sure they were good(133 when done searing), likely unnecessary but added great color to it. In short- screw Rockwell.


Thanks all for the input. Plan on buying some cheap bird this weekend to do this again sevaral times real soon.
 
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So I did the chef steps process more or less as written. Dark meat got 12 hours at 150 then reduced temp to 131 and added the white meat for about 9 hours. I took the skin off the white meat, salted it, and roasted it in the oven. Forgot to weight it down so it kinda shriveled up on me but once it was fully cooked I crumbled it like bacon and scattered on the sliced meat.

My dark meat gave off an enormous and somewhat alarming amount of juice. I was quite afraid that the bags must of leaked. No sign of leaking into the water bath so I decided to test it out. With about 3 hours to go I pulled the dark meat, rebagged it (without the juices) returned the meat to the batch and checked out the juices. First I chilled a sample in the fridge for about 10 minutes. Gelled right up so I tasted it. Very flavorfull. Was expecting it to be too salty to use (that recipe calls for a lot of salt) but it was fine. I had about half a liter which was about 90% juice and 10% fat. Put that into a seperator and used half in my gravy and half in my stuffing.

For serving I put the legs and one breast half under the broiler for a few min and then cut up. Sprinkled the lot with bits of crispy skin.

All came out good and was well received at the table. I'd probably go to 140 on the white meat for less time next time I do it as I like it a little firmer but just had a sandwich this morning from all white meat and was outstanding.
 
Deep-fried turkey came out as expected. I started doing them in the fryer because it is so easy to get a repeatable result. I was able to keep the cooking temp at 350 the entire time which shortened the total cook time--something around 25 minutes total. Everyone enjoyed it so I was happy.
turkey nov 18.jpg
 
schematix said:
pics or it didn't happen....
Click to expand...

Problem with Sous Vide is that there is no resting time. Thanksgiving is not just the Turkey. I got at least 7 side dishes going and no time to let that bird set aout and be admired while everything else comes together. So I got this pic during the cook but sadly nothing at serving time. Next time will designate a photographer to satisfy history....

upload_2018-11-24_16-5-44.png
 
eric19312 said:
Problem with Sous Vide is that there is no resting time. Thanksgiving is not just the Turkey. I got at least 7 side dishes going and no time to let that bird set aout and be admired while everything else comes together. So I got this pic during the cook but sadly nothing at serving time. Next time will designate a photographer to satisfy history....

View attachment 599326
Click to expand...

Good enough! Holy cow you packed that container full.

So overall you’d say it was worth it?
 
I’m not convinced the dark meat comes out better than I can do in the oven. The white meat is better in Sous vide than any other way I’ve ever tried to make it. Next year I’m probably back to som variation of Sous vide white meat and oven roasted dark meat. Maybe if I hadn’t stolen the liquid from the dark meat bags for stuffing and gravy it would of come out better but those are equally important to me and they did come out really well.
 
I know it's a sous vide thread but I can't imagine the white meat coming out better than deep-fried. I'll try the sous vide method soon. In any case, yes, the deep-fried turkey could be marinated, spiced or whatever; but for pure perfection--tender juicy, flavorful, etc., I'm not sure how I could improve. But here's a negative: what I've learned from deep frying is that the legs and wings would be better served (pun) by cutting them off and free floating them. The reason is that they're too isolated in relation to the rest of the bird and therefore get overcooked slightly.
I have enjoyed learning about this technique.
 
davidabcd said:
I know it's a sous vide thread but I can't imagine the white meat coming out better than deep-fried.
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Deep fried turkey is pretty good, but chicken and turkey breast cooked to a near sterile ~145F has a vastly superior texture and more moisture than anything you can make with quick-hot methods that usually require >160F for food safety. I've cooked a lot of stuff sous vide and most of it sucks compared to other cooking methods, but IMHO it's killer app is turkey and chicken breast.

The downside to sous vide is that the skin sucks without significant work, and the meat can be bland without the browning. Turkey meat normally isn't browned or charred so that flavor contribution doesn't matter as much. I've regretted every steak or lamb cut i've wasted on sous vide though.
 
schematix said:
Deep fried turkey is pretty good, but chicken and turkey breast cooked to a near sterile ~145F has a vastly superior texture and more moisture than anything you can make with quick-hot methods that usually require >160F for food safety. I've cooked a lot of stuff sous vide and most of it sucks compared to other cooking methods, but IMHO it's killer app is turkey and chicken breast.

The downside to sous vide is that the skin sucks without significant work, and the meat can be bland without the browning. Turkey meat normally isn't browned or charred so that flavor contribution doesn't matter as much. I've regretted every steak or lamb cut i've wasted on sous vide though.
Click to expand...

Haha, I could have typed that. Chicken and pork loins are the winners with sous vide (also, ribs, but stating that might cause an uproar in the bbq circles). I use mine for cheesemaking more than anything else.
 
schematix said:
Deep fried turkey is pretty good, but chicken and turkey breast cooked to a near sterile ~145F has a vastly superior texture and more moisture than anything you can make with quick-hot methods that usually require >160F for food safety. I've cooked a lot of stuff sous vide and most of it sucks compared to other cooking methods, but IMHO it's killer app is turkey and chicken breast.

The downside to sous vide is that the skin sucks without significant work, and the meat can be bland without the browning. Turkey meat normally isn't browned or charred so that flavor contribution doesn't matter as much. I've regretted every steak or lamb cut i've wasted on sous vide though.
Click to expand...

ok, we might need to move this to the debate thread!

I couldn't disagree more about red meat done in sous vide. My kids actually don't want to go out to a steak house anymore because they prefer the steaks I make at home. We prefer our red meat done rare to mid-rare. I sous vide at 127f then sear the hell out of it in a smoking hot iron pan or even better on a charcoal chimney starter with a grate over it. The faster you can get a seared crust the better.

I love chicken and turkey in the sous vide, but steaks are the killer application!
 
NeoBrew said:
ok, we might need to move this to the debate thread!

I couldn't disagree more about red meat done in sous vide. My kids actually don't want to go out to a steak house anymore because they prefer the steaks I make at home. We prefer our red meat done rare to mid-rare. I sous vide at 127f then sear the hell out of it in a smoking hot iron pan or even better on a charcoal chimney starter with a grate over it. The faster you can get a seared crust the better.
Click to expand...

I guess if your (or your family's) personal preferences lean towards lightly flavored red meat then sous vide is the perfect cooking method for you. Nothing wrong with that.

Flavor aside, the thing that always confused me is why you'd cook a relatively thin steak (1-2") twice. The end result is the same temperature gradient except the sous vide one isn't browned as well and you made twice the mess and spent twice the effort cooking it twice.
 
schematix said:
I guess if your (or your family's) personal preferences lean towards lightly flavored red meat then sous vide is the perfect cooking method for you. Nothing wrong with that.

Flavor aside, the thing that always confused me is why you'd cook a relatively thin steak (1-2") twice. The end result is the same temperature gradient except the sous vide one isn't browned as well and you made twice the mess and spent twice the effort cooking it twice.
Click to expand...

Pro tip: You will noticed that my post contained no personal attacks.

The steak isn't cooked twice. When done correctly you get only a very thin layer of crust on the outside of the steak and then consistent pink meat across the remainder of the meat. In order to get a good result you need to sear it VERY hot for only a few seconds. My preferred method is the one shown at 17:25 of this video. I can usually count of 30 seconds a side to get what I'm looking for. Is it more work than some other methods? Yes. But what part of cooking doesn't take some work? The other day I spent 9 hours BBQing a pork shoulder. It was totally worth it.
 
NeoBrew said:
Pro tip: You will noticed that my post contained no personal attacks.
Click to expand...

Neither did mine. I suggest you re-read. A personal preference is not a personal attack unless one wants to take it that way.

However you did interject yourself into a discussion where you had nothing to add to the OP, while first suggesting what you were going to post was contentious. I’m struggling to see where you thought this was going to go.

Back to the original point though, it is cooking twice in the sense that if you are first cooking sous vide and then again with a hot pan, blow torch, grill, etc, so you made twice the mess to clean up. I’ve tried it all and flavor wise it’s not even in the ballpark of a properly roasted or grilled chunk of red meat. That’s my opinion.
 
passedpawn said:
According to Cooks Illistrated (IIRC), basting is not effective and even worse than not basting at all.

I'd love to hear how your sous vide turkey turns out. It never occurred to me to try a whole turkey in my kit.
Click to expand...
passedpawn said:
According to Cooks Illistrated (IIRC), basting is not effective and even worse than not basting at all.

I'd love to hear how your sous vide turkey turns out. It never occurred to me to try a whole turkey in my kit.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with that statement. I use to not baste but started after watching Bobby Flay roast a rack of lamb and there is a big difference. Juicey!

I also am thinking of sous vide style cooking a turkey in my boil kettle so all of this is just what I was looking for.
 
I'd recommend it. My only hindsight was to do it BEFORE a big holiday meal. It was a little stressful doing it the first time on thanksgiving.
 

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