However, if I had a bloody, fresh bird, I would rinse it. All my turkeys though have been rather antiseptic looking, even raw.

Not too many years ago, a turkey came with fuzz that had to be singed off and all sorts of pin feathers. I always kept a pair of "pin feather tweezers" in my kitchen drawer. Why are there no more pin feathers? not that i miss them!!

E

There are far more bacteria on the skin of poultry than is present on skinless muscle meat. You can read the details in "On Food and Cooking - the Science and Lore of the Kitchen" by Harold McGee (pg 100-101).

Keep a quart spritz bottle filled with water and 1-teaspoon of bleach in it as a sanitizer to use frequently during food prep. to take care of "cooties" and help prevent cross-contamination. And don't forget to wipe down the handles on your refrigerator - a prime "cootie" site.

-Grainlady

Last year, turkey was $0.30 a lb. I bought two 18-lb birds. Sous vide cooked them directly from frozen right in the bag.

Of course there was no skill required to cook perfect turky in a sous vide cooker.

dcarch

No that is not a roasted turkey. That was straightly for turkey meat for sandwiches, turkey salad, everything else which does not require turkey skin.

The picture shows all the meat was saved and the bones were ready for soup.

I found a vacuum packed portion of breast meat in the freezer one year later, sous vided it at 150F again. It was just as juicy and tender as when it was first cooked at 150F.

A great way to use turkey at $0.30 a lb and not having to buy cold cuts.

dcarch

Gone appetite

That being said, I don't rinse the turkey anymore after people were attacking me for saying I did because you are spreading germs everywhere when you rinse poultry. Who knew? I did the research myself and did find they suggest not to rinse as the heat will kill any bacteria and the water used isn't going to help.

Yes, and that did not effect or affect the taste.

Seagrass, I can understand. It was a little messy to completely remove the meat from the bones and cleanly remove all the skin and fat. But such 100% perfect meat is well worth the effort. Otherwise, buying store turkey cold cuts is an option.

arkansas_girl, that is a very good question. Everyone should do your own determination as to safe food temperature for all meats. Never try to base on one single source of information from any expert.

To answer your questions:

a. Safe cooking temperature is time dependent. At 165F, food is safe for consumption immediately, but if you cook the food longer, it will be safe at lower temperatures. There are charts out there on the WEB you can go by.

b. To cook a turkey directly from frozen, IMHO, is safer than thawing your bird for almost a whole week in the refrigerator, or a whole day at room temperature. In this method, the meat goes from frozen to cooking temperature significantly shorter.

Couple of things: In one picture above, that little thin spoon is a bone marrow spoon. Good tasty bone marrow in those big bones after making soup.

As we all know, even at very safe cooking temperature poultry bones are still kind of bloody, that can be an issue for many people, as a result, you overcook to try to avoid that, and ending up with somewhat dry meat. By removing the meat from the bones, you minimize that issue.

Back on topic: For the purpose of 100% perfect turkey meat, this unusual methods is 100% no sanitizing cleanup either before or after.

dcarch

I said a few times that I make 100% perfect turkey meat. I don't mean to imply that I am very skillful.

I did say in my first post that in this method 100% perfect meat involves no skill, it is all simple digital electronics. You guys are a lot more skillful in making turkey than I am.

dcarch

and 30 cents a pound? Here the cheap store birds are $1.49 this year, although Gordon Food Service is having a sale for 49 cents a pound if you buy $25.00 worth of other stuff. That's the cheapest I've seen it. The local birds are $50 each for a turkey about 25 pounds after being dressed so that's $2 a pound but it's pasture raised and antibiotic free heritage turkey from a local Amish farm, last year they raised Bourbon Red.

I rinse the turkey for the same reason Grainlady and LindaC do, there are always bits of lung and such still in the turkey, Commercial ones are mechanically cleaned and it doesn't get everything and even the locally available turkeys from small farms get done by dozens (instead of tens of thousands) and aren't always cleaned to my standards. Because I do pluck and clean my own poultry, I know how it want it done and what's still in there. Since I stuff the bird, I want all that stuff out. And I also do the bleach in a spray bottle thing, I can't help myself.

Next year I think I'm raising turkeys, we'll see how much rinsing I have to do on my own. I'm leaning toward Bourbon Red but might get some Narragansett. My nephew wants a Royal Palm, which are beautiful birds but pretty much like peacocks, for decoration only,not much good for the table.

Annie

This proves my belief that presentation is so important to the eating enjoyment. A turkey done this way is a lot more tasty than the typical roasting of a turkey at 500F with a lot of the meat cooked to 212F to get to internal temperature of 165F, yet this way the turkey appears to be unappetizing.

I have linked below a chart showing at 150F all you need is 10 minutes for the chicken to be as safe for eating as at 165F. And if you like, you can even cook the chicken at 140F for 35 minutes.

Besides truly juicy tender meat, the other benefit in low temperature cooking is meat shrinkage is a lot less. More meat for your money. Less shrinkage = more juice in meat.

dcarch

Sorry, I still wouldn't eat it, but have no problem at all with you enjoying it.

Annie

Again, as I have said a few times, that turkey was not used for serving on a thanksgiving dinner table. It was straightly used for saving the meat for other recipes, therefore not overcooking was important.

I did't worry about the plastic because I assume it was to be used for food. Furthermore the cooking temperature was relatively low and chemical reactions are much lower at lower temperatures. Based on my observation, that plastic was actually of the heat shrink type, which was to be used for much higher temperature. In any case, if there was any chemical at all leaking, it would still be OK because the skin of the turkey was not to be used.

As to the cooking temperature, I am not going to challenge the chart I linked, which I believe is well established. I can't recall exactly how long the bird was in the cooker, definitely not for a few days, although at 150F it would have been safe for a few days. It is not uncommon for many sous vide recipes for food to be in even lower temperature, say at 120F, for 72 hours.

I agree it does not look as cooked as turkey cooked at much higher temperature, and that may not be acceptable to whoever is not used to having seen turkey meat cooked at that temperature. Aesthetics and food safety are not always related issues.

For turkey to be served on a Thanksgiving dinner table, this was what I made.

dcarch

If you are happy doing that, fine. BUT there is no way I would do that and serve it to my family and friends.

Thank you for your understanding, as I am not here to preach or to convince anyone else to do things my way, and I do recognize the fact that many of my ways are far from being typical.

dcarch

There was a thread over on the Kitchen Forum a week or two back about the use of bleach to clean kitchen surfaces, and it was brought up that chlorine bleach takes several minutes of direct contact with bacteria to kill it. Mere wiping with a bleachy cloth does not provide the necessary residence time to disinfect. I've always been a big believer in the efficacy of soap and water. When used in my sink, does a pretty good job of washing the "cooties" down the drain.

I put mine in the sink, run cold water into the cavity, drain it and remove any bits, rinse again. Then I do whatever with the bird, wash my hands and give the sink a wash with soap, a rinse and then a spray of bleach solution which I do not rinse away or dry. It dries by itself as it's a light mist, not a heavy stream.

dcarch, even if I thought cooking in the plastic wrapping was safe, (and remember, there's a difference between food safe and safe for cooking) the bird is still not seasoned. Yes, I know you can salt and pepper it after cooking but you just basically boiled/poached a plain unseasoned turkey.

Annie

I'm not concerned about the look of the turkey though...a poached chicken can look pretty sick too, but it makes for great salads and such.

The chart that dcarch linked appears valid, but it only tells part of the story. Other critical factors for determining how long the food needs to cook - start to finish - in order to be safe include start temperature, thickness of the meat, etc. My understanding is that for a home cook in particular, it's critical that the meat reaches the target temperature within four hours. So while you can reference charts that will tell you that a two inch thick turkey breast cooked at 150 deg F is ready in 2.5 hours, they are based on the assumption that the breast is fully surrounded by a regulated water bath. Now if the inside of that breast is exposed to stagnant air the whole time - cold air, at that - those figures go out the window. Not to mention the buffer of the frozen thigh and leg tucked up against the breast. And not to mention the gizzards floating around that probably never get cooked. What's next, put a turkey in an oven bag and toss it in your warming drawer? No thanks.

I'd certainly be open to trying sous vide turkey, but not cooked like that. Offhand I cannot find one recipe or method online for cooking turkey sous vide that does not involve breaking down the bird and packaging the parts separately. I'd stick with that.

I have never cooked a turkey from a small organic grower, but sure have eaten chickens. And have found lots of bits of lung blood vessels and even once the heart.

Anyone else remember a few years back when some TV cook came out with the idea to cook your turkey at 225 and put it in the oven before you went to bed and a 16 pound turkey would be ready to eat at noon. But there were experts who said that a cold turkey in a 225 degree oven wouldn't get hot enough soon enough to prevent dangerous toxins from the bacteria growing before it got hot enough to kill them.

When I cook for others I am more concerned with the food being safe to eat than artfully arranged.

I found it amusing after seeing all the drop dead gorgeous plates of food you've posted pictures of over the years.
I'm intrigued, and I think it's pretty creative. If I could cook turkey efficiently and perfectly and that easily for $.30 a pound, you can bet your boots I'd have a freezer full as well! Our prices are nowhere near that, not even after the holidays.

That said, I'm also a compulsive rinser-of-poultry. It's not so much the bacteria on the skin that I'm after as the unnamed little bits of crud that dot the surface and the innards. I rinse the cavity out well, removing any stray bits, and pat the skin dry. Then I bleach up thoroughly afterwards.

Cj

I don't rise cut-up poultry before cooking.

I don't have a sous vide cooker so am not hopping into that discussion.

One thing I have always found to be curious about turkeys is why people don't cut them up and roast the breasts for a shorter time than the legs and thighs. It seems so sensible but guess it wouldn't give that five minute Norman Rockwell moment before carving.

It all has to do with thermodynamics.

A cubic foot of air can hold 0.018 BTUs, and a cubic foot of water holds 62.43 BTUs, therefore water has 3,468 times more heat to heat up your food. Based on static conditions.

In a sous vide cooker, very hot water is constantly circulated, which make heat conduction infinitely more efficient than a cold turkey in cold static air, 10,000 times better than static air perhaps?

This means in a hot circulating water sous vide cooker, the cold turkey will be spending much short time in the temperature danger zone comparing to any other methods of cooking the turkey. (except microwave).

Regarding possible poison in the plastic, I am assuming the plastic was food grade, under 150F condition, any poison would be leaked into the outside circulating water, which was not part of the food, any small amount of poison inside would be on the thick skin, which was discarded.

FOAS, there is no air pocket in a frozen turkey. See picture of a saw cut frozen turkey.

dcarch

18 lbs of ice in 150F rapidly circulating hot water with a 500W heater and see if that take more than 4 hours.

Then try this:

18 lbs of ice in still air room temperature and how long it takes for the entire bag of ice to melt and reach room temperature, then have that 18 lbs of room temperature water reach 150F.

And then tell me which one is a better method.

dcarch

That same 18 pound turkey, properly thawed, would roast in an oven in about 3 hours, or cut up and cooked sous vide would cook in about 2.5 hours. To me, intuitively at least, either of these two options would seem safer. Of course I could be wrong, and I'm sure you'll tell me I am!

Another point to consider is that 40F is not totally safe in your refrigerator, it depends on how long. Food goes moldy and meat goes funky in the refrigerator. I don't know if it is safer to thaw a frozen turkey in a refrigerator for a few days vs thawing in a hot 150F water for a just few hours.

dcarch

The moral of the story: Don't do it if you are not comfortable with this once a year crazy idea.

For fun, watch these two videos. It seems to me that his plastic used was not even food grade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WniZ1ly5Ik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neqq8imstlc&feature=relmfu

dcarch

Sous vide is something that interests me, but I don't understand it. I appreciate the info so thanks. I also didn't understand that it could be done in a cooler. More and more interesting.

The only point I have to take issue with is the 18# of ice sitting on the counter. For the analogy, shouldn't it be put in a preheated 150° oven for a proper comparison? The idea was a waterbath cooking vs air "bath" cooking.

Funny thing, nothing in the pictures or conversation made me go "erp" until someone mentioned Butterball! I felt chunks form at the back of my throat at that thought! I just don't like the injected ones.

Sorry to sound so negative but this whole way of cooking (sous vide), in the bag with another bag inside with the giblets and liver, in an ice chest for hours on in does not appeal to me at all nor would it to any of my friends or family.

I'm always willing to try different recipes, ingredients, etc. This is just too far out there IMHO.

Sorry Dcarch.

No problem dixiedog. I am not here to promote or defend the sous vide method. It is already a well establish excellent way of cooking.

cynic, sous vide is an unfortunate fancy name. It is nothing more than cooking in a water oven with precision temperature control. Yes, It was a Manger's Special sale for $0.30 a lb. Comparing it with $7.00 a lb turkey lunch meat, which was what I was making, it was a fantastic bargain.

dcarch