Turkey...The Aftermath............

**doubleA** · 04-14-2009, 12:52 PM

There was a post earlier about what folks did with their turkey(s) after getting one. Just a follow up here and a suggestion to those that have not tried this.

It's a little time consuming but well worth the effort.

I take the semi-frozen breast and slice/cut it into appx 1/4 inch pieces

I then season it with simple spices. I use Salt, Black Pepper, Garlic Powder, Crushed Cayene Pepper and Cure.

I then place in in a plastic container and refrigerate for 24 hours or so. This gives it time for the spices and cure to thoroughly permeate the meat.

The next step is to place it on drying sheets, the ones I use are plastic and have a 3/8" grid and work well with jerky. Make sure that none of the pieces touch each other this helps with the air and smoke to be able to pass through .

I then place the sheets on racks in my smoke house which is a simple 8x8x7 ft steel room with a walk in door, fire box in the concrete floor and vents used to control air/smoke.

Then in this case, apply smoke with mesquite and oak. The amount of time needed depends on the ambient humidity and tempeture. Most of the time I'll give in 8-10 hours with the temp never going over 180 degrees.I'll check several times for dryness and remove it when I think it's done. With jerky you just want to remove the water/moisture from the muscle and not cook it.

* Note*Cure is a very key ingregient in making this as it wards off botulisim bacteria and spoiling of the meat. Cure is simply sodium nitrite applied to salt as a carrier and used in very small amounts.

I just finished putting this batch in the smokehouse awhile ago and decided to make this post. we should have some sample by this afternoon