Has anyone compared and contrasted brined turkey to injected turkey?
A few thoughts and assumptions I have considered:
The leanness of the turkey, especially the breasts would seem to be better suited for brining and longer, more evenly distributed moisture. While whole chickens have an increased amount of fat comparatively and may be better suited to injection. Given, brining whole chickens is certainly a good method as well, I have always injected my whole chickens and very rarely have moisture problems even with 4 hour cooks.
If I were going to inject a whole turkey, I would mirror the time frames of brining.
One plus could be less moisture retention of the skin with injection.
A negative could be remnants of injection marks especially if spices are included in the injection. This would be prominent in the white flesh of the meat
I've spoken with a lot of professional chefs and done the research...when it comes to poultry, chicken or turkey, the breast meat is just plain lean and I've been told that you simply have to brine in order to get good results. I've found this to be true. The process is diffusion (not osmosis) and what you're doing is essentially getting the meat fibers to absorb more water. Injection is not going to do this for you...so doing a brine, in my playbook, is essential.
I use a seasoned brine and I have to say, I've tried injecting in addition to brining and it doesn't seem necessary or advantageous. A seasoned brine will absolutely get you there. Injecting seems like a compromise to brining but better then nothing. It still seems like the meat shrinks, tightens and compresses during the cook that anything injected just gets squeezed out. And yeah, sometimes I wonder if all those injection holes aren't letting fluids seep out! I've poked a few birds with skewers only to see quite a bit of precious fluid coming oozing out. So yeah, I think I'm done injecting my turkey, I'll stick with a 3-5 day seasoned brine in the frig.
Biggest tip I could offer is never go over 16 pounds. I've gone as high at 28 pounds and had reasonable results but if you want outstanding results, keep it under 16....the big Tom's are almost like compressed wood, whatever results you may get with a big Tom, the results would be even better with a modest sized hen. By the time the deep meat hits 165F, the outer meat has had too much exposure.
Spatchcocking or Butterflying is also a great thing. Breast meat and thigh meat are different in how they cook so splitting the bird seems to help even this out.
Nobody in my family eats the skin for health reasons but I leave the skin on for about 2 hours (to help keep things moist) and then pull the bird...peel the skin, oil it up and then apply rub to help build a light bark. This way each slice of the breast can have a nice texture. If, during the cook, the bark starts to look too dark or the meat starts to crack a bit, I'll cover the breast with some foil...but some good oil and a few mops should be fine. This is where having a bigger bird, that takes longer for the 165F to hit the inner meat, can take it's toll.
Last thought, better to go longer on the brine with lower salt concentration then to go higher on the salt and hope you didn't create a salty bird. The trick is to get the meat to absorb water but not have your guest waking up in the middle of the night gasping for a drink of water because they inadvertently ate what amounts to a salt lick. There is a fine window where you get the moisturizing effect without the excessive salty taste.
