Revisiting Time & Temp’s For Turkey Breast (Sous-Vide)

(OP-2019) I love Turkey, and there's no other Holiday I can think of that preoccupies my time for an entire month, if not more. Morning, Noon, and Night "Turkey" becomes my focus and muse. From cooking the Thanksgiving meal to coming up with unique leftover dishes, I can never get enough Turkey. So far this year, I've processed three whole Turkeys and Two Whole Breasts. But here I go again with another Breast (Note- I have a 14 lb bird sitting in the refrigerator).

Over the years, I've dialed in what I think are great Time and Temps for Turkey, but then it occurred to me why not try an alternate T &T. For the last few years, my go-to Temp & Time for White Meat has been 146f at 6 Hours, and for Dark Meat is 149f at 8-Hours. This has always produced moist, delicious Turkey, but something happened last week. I decided to Cook the Breast a little lower and a little longer to see what would happen, and to my surprise, it came out well. I was expecting something rubbery and unappealing. I've been reluctant to try this because I've never liked Chicken at lower temps because of the texture. Note: Time & Temps do not extend laterally with Turkey and Chicken. Turkey and Chicken might be Poultry but IMO are quite different. The taste and composition of Turkey are entirely different than Chicken. A special thanks to Chefsteps and their suggestion to do 24-hrs. I read about their T & T years ago read (131f at 12-24hrs) but never considered doing this because of my suppositions on texture.

I think the only real way to evaluate inclinations,
likes and dislikes are with a side by side test. Other than the Sous-Vide processing times, everything else will be identical. Unlike like Red-Meat, this test is more manageable. One Breast cut off the bone into two halves is easier to manage than buying a whole Primal and cutting it into steaks for testing. 

Go Long or go Home... Each half-breast will receive the following treatment. 1% Dry-Brine with Kosher Salt and will be refrigerated for 24-Hours. Processing will be as follows—130f for 24-Hours and 146f for 6-Hours. 

Over the years, I've played around with different seasons and injections, but for this assessment, I believed salt is all I would need to discover if I was on to something unique altogether. I did not want to mask any flavors. Each 1/2 breast was weighed and coated with 1% of Kosher Salt. What does this mean? One 1/2 breast weighed in at 854 grams, which means I needed 8.54 grams of salt. 854 x 1% (.01)= 8.54. Turkey was coated with 1% KS and Dry-Brined, Vaccum sealed for 24-Hours before processing. 

After processing the breasts,  they were shocked and refrigerated, just for convenience. 

Breasts were rethermed and given a very thin schmear of mayo for the sear. I added nothing else. Note: if they had come directly out of the bath, they would have been left on the counter in the bag for 10-minutes, flipping at least once to cool down. This cooling down method prevents overcooking during the sear. 

Seared in a Carbon steel pan with a little Avocado oil. 

131f at 24-Hours

146f at 6-Hours 

The testing was a success. I think next year I am only going to season with Salt. No poultry seasoning either. Using Salt only and the new T and T gave a slam dunk to the overall Turkey Flavor. 

This week I plan on doing a whole Turley broken down into sections. I plan on using Fish Salt at 1% and contrasting this with KS at 1%. I primarily use Fish Salt on beef so let's see what happens with Turkey. I am also going to process the Dark-meat at 149f for 24-Hours. 

Best Turkey Sandwich I've ever had!!!!

Faux Aged with white and Dark meat.....Version two of this test.