I decided to smoke a turkey on Sunday. I have smoked whole turkeys 5 or 6 times in the past and they always turned out good. This time, I decided to smoke just the breast. I purchased the frozen product a couple of days in advance, and thought it had thawed completely, but when I went to prepare it, there was still ice inside. I did proceed and planned to smoke it near oven temperature, 325 and based on that it should have taken about 2 1/2 hours. I did get a late start and started smoking on on the new 14″ WSM. I placed the bird on shortly after 3 PM using cherry and maple wood.

Cooking to the proper internal temperature is critical, and since it was just a turkey breast, the proper internal temp is 165 or above.  close to 7 PM it was still not up to temp, so we made alternate plans for dinner, and I removed the turkey and placed it in the oven to finish. I cooked in the oven for another 45 minutes until finished. Since we had already eaten, I let it cool and finally sliced it up and placed it in a big zip-lock bag. Mission accomplished, took longer than normal, but it tasted good.

I woke up the next morning to find that I have left the zip-lock bag on the counter overnight, and I had to throw the whole thing away.