bone-in turkey breast and chicken leg quarters with q-view

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cvaglica

Fire Starter
Original poster
Jul 3, 2011
42
10
Austin, Texas
Hello - I'm trying out my second turkey breast and hoping for great results. I'm also doing leg quarters which have always been pretty failproof so far. Here's what I've done so far....

Brined the turkey breast overnight in Tip's brine recipe. This morning I rinsed the turkey and patted it dry and then poured a little oil over it. I put some pats of butter under the skin and rubbed it all over with a rub I mixed up with what I had on hand. I oiled and rubbed the leg quarters as well.

Here are pics of the rubbed poultry and the food in the MES 40. I'm using the Amazen Pellet Smoker tray for the second time today. The first time I tried to use it it kept going out, so I gave up and used the wood chips. I'm hoping I can keep it burning today so I don't have to keep feeding wood chips. I removed the chip chute from the smoker and pulled out the chip tray a couple of inches. So far I don't see much smoke but I'm going to check again shortly. I'll keep you posted with how it all turns out!

e08d9d77_legquarters.jpg
82ccfb3a_turkey.jpg
36a8ac62_intheMES40.jpg
 
The pellets seem to be burning well this time. I let it burn for a longish time this time before putting it in the smoker and that seems to have helped. So far so good!
 
I just pulled the leg quarters out at 165 IT. They cooked a lot faster than I expected...about 2 hrs 40 minutes. I've covered them in foil. What's the best way to keep them until dinnertime, around 6:30? Refrigerate and reheat in low oven temp? These didn't get quite as brown as I expected. Any ideas why that might be?

Here's a pic of the finished leg quarters. The turkey breast it at 147 IT right now...I'll pull it at 165. Fingers crossed!
3a523f3a_legquartersdone.jpg
 
Are you sure the smoker temp is correct? I used the chip tray in mine when I did my chicken qtrs. Other than the temp being off, I have no idea why they didn't take on much color. How's the smoke flavor/smell? Maybe someone else will have better answers, as I am still fairly new to smoking.
 
Not sure about the smoker temp. I'm using that smoking probe/temp thing that Todd sells, and it seems like the temp remained around 235ish the whole time. Some temp fluctuation, but not a whole let. Don't know why the legs didn't get a lot of color. The flavor was great! The turkey turned out great too...a little salty in my opinion, but the family loved it. Very moist.

So...anyone have any suggestions about why the color isn't very good?
 
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