Go to the Recipe: DIY Butterball Turkey
Not sure I'm following here and perhaps overthinking this but if sodium tripolyphosphate is something store bought turkey like Butterball's use, it seem like this process should be done to heritage turkeys, and not a turkey that might have already sodium tripolyphosphate injected before it was packaged for sale. I don't see any comments in either the "before we begin" or ingredients to indicate this is an issue.
I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if I go to the market and get a turkey, allow it to thaw and brine with sodium tripolyphosphate do I run the risk of exceeding the 0.5% by effectively adding a second dose of sodium tripolyphosphate. I'm looking forward to try this as I have some sodium tripolyphosphate on hand but I just wanna make sure before I do... Thanks
I’m assuming it doesn’t make a difference, but would you change anything in the process if you plan to spatchcock the turkey rather than roasting it whole?
You'd ideally find a bird that isn't labelled as "seasoned" or "brined." Obviously a butcher would be your best bet, but the Costcos around here stock fresh, unbrined/unseasoned young turkeys year-round.
You are correct, this recipe is designed for birds that have not been pre-treated any form of seasoning, whether that is just salt, or more importantly, a phosphate-enhanced brine. Do not use a "self-basting" Butterball-style bird or a "kosher" bird. Birds that are labeled "fresh," "natural," "free-range," and "heritage" are generally safe bets, seeing as they are almost always un-seasoned. When in doubt, check the ingredient label or ask your butcher. Adding a note to the "Before we begin" section to address this! Thanks!
Thank you ...
Thank you, this helps and I'm happy to learn of the 'before we begin' update too.
I wouldn't change anything related to brining the turkey itself. But since you're spatchcocking, the turkey will cook a bit faster (say, 30 to 40 minutes faster than a whole bird depending on weight and oven temperature). You can most likely get away with roasting at a high temperature (425 F) for the entire time, and pulling the turkey at your target temperature.
Hope this helps!
Would there be any extra challenge to following the exact recipe other than cooking time to fill with pre-heated stuffing? A la serious eats "herb-rubbed-roast-turkey-with-stuffing:. Seems like it would be relatively easy to adjust to perhaps longer cook time
Any reason not to use this method for injection and then smoke the turkey, instead of roasting?
I don't see why not! Smoked turkey on the grill (or in a real smoker setup) would be super tasty. Let us know how it turns out if you give it a shot.
I need to use a kosher Empire turkey for Thanksgiving. Is it possible to use the sodium tripolyphosphate mixed with water and sugar alone, leaving out the salt, as the turkey is already salt brined?
Found a lovely young Bell & Evans turkey at the grocery - zero additives. Since this is a small bird (10 lb) Can I assume that I can scale the recipe down to .75 turkey and be fine with the brine? Or is there a weight to brine formula that I can use instead? I don't want a little bloated bird lol.
I am wondering about stuffing the bird too as someone else asked below.
The quantity of sttp appears to be wrong, at 58gm it is greater than 0.5% of the combined weight of bird and brine. Even allowing for a 7.25kg bird
Good catch! So short answer: There is significant brine loss through the injection and brining process that on average, puts you under .5% of the combined weight with respect to STPP.
Long answer: Absent from this recipe is our raw data for brine loss over successive trials. On average, over 10 or so trials, we were seeing 40 to 50% brine retention after injection and the brining period. We weighed the bird before injection, after injection, and after the full brining period. If we make the conservative estimate of 50% brine retention for a 5400-gram bird, then the math looks something like this:
5400 (turkey) + 1000 (water) + 29 (STPP) + 48 (salt) + 40 (sugar)=6517g combined weight
29/6517=0.0044 or .44%, which is just under the proposed limit for brined poultry
I should add that I am by no means a poultry scientist or food safety expert. So take my numbers at face value. For better or for worse, injection is not a very exact method, despite the science-y lab vibes that a needle injector evokes. Brine retention is hard to track unless recorded over lots of trials.
Can you cook this sous vide style?
If you want to stuff your bird, then pre-heated stuffing would be a reasonable avenue. Stuffing will increase the cook time by 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the size of your bird. Because of that increased cooking time, I'd look out for the skin browning excessively or even burning in spots due to the small amount of sugar in the injection brine.
I'd also wager that you would be fine without any interventions (i.e. excessive browning would be a non-issue), but in the event that things start to brown too much for your liking, then I would shield any darker spots with foil to slow down browning/darkening.
Good luck!
You could definitely try this. I would still make sure to dissolve the STPP completely before adding sugar, just to make sure that your solution is completely dissolved and injectable. Otherwise, I don't see why this wouldn't work.
Your intuition is solid. I think you would get great results from using a scaled down batch of brine. One thing to note: I don't think it's possible to "over-inject" a turkey when it comes to sheer volume of brine. In other words, over all of our trials, there seems to be a point at which the bird doesn't hold onto any more brine. For a 12-16 pound turkey, that upper limit appears to be roughly ~1000g brine, give or take 150g. So for a 10-lb turkey, I'd bet that you could get away with injecting ~1500g of brine, and assume retention of 8-900g of brine.
Hope this makes sense!
I haven't tested into this, to be honest. As with most other poultry, I don't necessarily recommend sous vide cooking for an entire bird. Instead, you'd be looking at cooking individual parts of a turkey at specific temperatures, in order to nail specific textures depending on your preference.
But if you're implying injecting a turkey breast or turkey leg, for instance, and then cooking it sous vide, I'd expect that piece of meat would be very juicy and tender. You wouldn't get much of that roasted turkey flavor that traditional roasting imparts, so there's a definite tradeoff.
Say someone messed up and bought a pre brined 9.5% solution turkey with no mention of STPP in the ingredients. You say that you can’t over inject brine, so can I just add this brining solution and see what sticks?
My understanding of this level of store pre brining is that it doesn’t add much flavor as people still dry brine on top of it without issues.
Useful information to have. Thanks
I think it's reasonable to assume that a pre-brined turkey would take up some of the STPP if you were to inject it. I would say go for it, and see how things turn out. One thing to note: Anecdotally, we noticed that STPP adds a tiny bit of saltiness (or least the perception of saltiness) when used in conjunction with sodium chloride in a brine. So just be mindful of that effect as you move forward.
If my turkey is significantly bigger than 16lbs, should I increase the recipe linearly?
Hey Jim! How big of a bird are we talking? For a bird up to say, 20 pounds, I think the base brine amount would be sufficient (this is based on our observations of brine retention for 12-17 lb birds). If you're in the 25-30 lb range, then I think you may have to scale up the brine by at least 1.5x.
