The week before Thanksgiving, Publix had frozen turkeys for $0.49 per pound. We picked up two 15+ pounds and two 9+ pounds.
The intent was to make deli meat from the 2 big ones and smoke the smaller ones for Thanksgiving and later family get together.
We boned out the breasts of the two15 pounders and cut them into 10 pounds of about 1/2 inch cubes. To the cubes, we mixed in 7 grams per pound salt and 1 gram per pound cure #1. These were then bagged and refrigerated for 3 days.
We separated out 3 pounds and ran it through a 3mm grinder plate.
The grind was then thoroughly mixed with the cubed meat and divided into 4 batches of about 2.5 pounds each.
Separately each batch was mixed with some different spice ingredients and stuffed into 76mm sausage casings. Here's the four sets of spices in grams in the batch:
We then hung the "sausages" in our old smoker, dried them for a couple of hours and smoked at 140º with apple pellets for about 3 hours.
After smoking, they were poached in 175º water until an internal temperature of 165º. Here's finished deli "sausages":
So, Here's what we got from $25 worth of turkey:
About 10 pounds deli sandwich meat
Two smoked turkeys (apology for crappy photo);
Four more turkey legs and wings for smoking some day;
And finally, about 3.5 quarts canned really thick pressure cooker bone broth for soup, gravy, etc.
The general method for deli meat is credited to the Charcutaria web site here.
The intent was to make deli meat from the 2 big ones and smoke the smaller ones for Thanksgiving and later family get together.
We boned out the breasts of the two15 pounders and cut them into 10 pounds of about 1/2 inch cubes. To the cubes, we mixed in 7 grams per pound salt and 1 gram per pound cure #1. These were then bagged and refrigerated for 3 days.
We separated out 3 pounds and ran it through a 3mm grinder plate.
The grind was then thoroughly mixed with the cubed meat and divided into 4 batches of about 2.5 pounds each.
Separately each batch was mixed with some different spice ingredients and stuffed into 76mm sausage casings. Here's the four sets of spices in grams in the batch:
We then hung the "sausages" in our old smoker, dried them for a couple of hours and smoked at 140º with apple pellets for about 3 hours.
After smoking, they were poached in 175º water until an internal temperature of 165º. Here's finished deli "sausages":
So, Here's what we got from $25 worth of turkey:
About 10 pounds deli sandwich meat
Two smoked turkeys (apology for crappy photo);
Four more turkey legs and wings for smoking some day;
And finally, about 3.5 quarts canned really thick pressure cooker bone broth for soup, gravy, etc.
The general method for deli meat is credited to the Charcutaria web site here.
. Then I bought another one this year when Sam's had the fresh turkeys frozen and marked down by $10 putting them at $2 for a 12 pounder, $4 for a 14 pounder. I'm thinking going the lunch meat route for kicks, but was thinking just plain on smoked/sliced turkey, vacuum sealed in packs in the freezer.
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