Frozen smoked turkey breast: Preserving bark?

[jjdbike]

Hello everyone,

I smoked several boneless, skinless turkey breasts and was thrilled with the moistness, flavor and bark. I did four of them, ate one that day. Froze three. I vacuum packed them in solidifed herb butter. My ideas was as I thawed and brought uptown temp in SV, they marinate and stay moist. We've eaten two and have one left.

As you can already surely imagine, they were moist and flavorful, but bark was completely destroyed, devolved, washed away w/ the butter.

Is there a good plan be to thawing and reheating this last one and maintaining the bark w/out drying it out?

Respectfully,
​​​​​​​JD

 

[mike243]

Sv to start then into a high heat oven for a few , maybe hard to overcome the butter unless you can wipe some off

 

[jjdbike]

Sv to start then into a high heat oven for a few , maybe hard to overcome the butter unless you can wipe some off

Thanks,
The butter that was placed in the vacuum pack bags was solidified. That being said, While still frozen, I can cut open vac bag and remove butter. Then reseal.

I still have the challenge of reheating and maintaining the bark. Shall I reheat in oven and hit it w/ a quick broil or sear in cast iron?

I'm also running the smoker to do the bolony so I could put it in there for a few.

Suggestions?
JD

 

[mike243]

When the moisture starts leaching out there wont be much you can do , thaw slice and broil lol

 

[Callahan-que]

I'd reheat on a 275° oven then hit with a sear in cast iron. This works well for reheating without drying the meat out or over cooking it. I've done this for reheating beef oven roasts that were cooked to medium rare and it worked great.

 

[Itsdone]

Wrap in butcher paper, then paper towels, then reseal and SV. All the juices will pass through the butcher paper and get soaked up by the paper towels. This will prevent the bark getting washed away. Then when fully reheated you can firm up the bark on high heat in the oven for a few minutes.

 

[tom b]

I'm slow but I didn't even know bark was a thing on a skinless turkey breast. Moist, tender and tasty is all I'm concerned with.

 

[thirdeye]

It sounds like you have more bark than I do. I always season with pepper and sometimes a light coat of a rub. I generally let mine slow thaw in the fridge, and reheat in SV and then a short run under the broiler.

The main difference is I use a lite curing brine for 24 hours, this not only adds moisture and color, but the end product is closer to a deli-style of smoked turkey.

 

[Callahan-que]

I'm slow but I didn't even know bark was a thing on a skinless turkey breast. Moist, tender and tasty is all I'm concerned with.

I've never heard of bark on turkey either, but who knows?

 

[Itsdone]

I'm slow but I didn't even know bark was a thing on a skinless turkey breast. Moist, tender and tasty is all I'm concerned with.

Next time you're at your local Deli counter, take notice to all the coatings they have for turkey and chicken.

 

[jjdbike]

I've never heard of bark on turkey either, but who knows?

First off,
Thanks everyone very much!
Also, see my 4 skinless turkey breasts as they came out of KBQ stick burner.
Pretty good bark if I say so myself.
The KBQ creates darn good bark,
Best regards!
JD

 

[tom b]

mine always came out looking like thirdeyes pic above, but what di I know