Recipe: Smoked Turkey Breast

There is only one ingredient:  turkey breast.    This is all about the cooking.

Most turkey breasts you see in the grocery stores have been brined.  This is soaking it in a salt water solution, usually with some sugar and other flavorings added.  This makes it VERY forgiving to long cooking preparations, like smoking.

Before you do anything, you need hardwood chips.  I'd recommend hickory, mesquite, or apple, but any hardwood will do.  (Never use pine, cedar, or any other softwood.  The smoke will have way too much soot in it, among other things.)  Get a big pot of water, and put several big handfuls of the wood chips in it. Let the wood soak for an hour or more to saturate it.  This is to make sure that the wood will smolder and smoke as opposed to catch fire.

And now, on to the food.  First, rinse off your turkey breast under cold water.  Lift up the flaps of skin, and -- using your fingers as much as possible and no knife if you can help it -- remove as much of the fat under the skin as you can.  Dry the turkey with paper towels.

Now it's time to set up your grill for indirect heating.  If you have a charcoal grill, you'll pile the coals as far to one side of the grill as you can.  If you use a gas grill, turn on only the burner all the way to either the left or the right.

Next, to start the smoke.  If using charcoal, you'll be able to just throw the wood chips on the coals.  However, you'll likely have to do this more often, which means opening the grill and releasing heat, which will increase the cooking time.

A fas grill is a little more complicated, but it will also give you more control and probably give you a quicker cooking time.  If you have a "smokebox," you'll use this.   A smoke box is more or less a metal box with some holes in it.  I don't have one of these, but I do have a little pan from an old (no longer functioning) toaster oven.  You can also use disposable aluminum pie pans or even just a  pouch made of heavy-duty aluminum foil -- but I would not recommend using thin aluminum foil to make a pouch.

Drain about 2 cups of the wood chips, and put them in the pan/pouch and cover it with heavy duty foil tightly.  (This will help keep the wood from catching fire, since it reduces the amount of oxygen near the wood.)  Poke 6-8 SMALL holes in the foil on the top.  Place the smokebox near the fire on the gas grill.   Within a couple of minutes, you should see some wisps of smoke coming out of the holes.  (If charcoal, put the wood directly on top of the coals).

Put the turkey breast on the grill as far away from the heat as you can.  If you have a stand roaster (it's a device that looks sort of like the middle of a Bundt cake pan or a tube pan -- you stick the vertical part into the cavity, and it stands the bird up for roasting), use it.  Put a meat or instant-read thermometer in into the center of the biggest part of the turkey breast.  Close the grill and keep an eye on the temperature.  You do not want the interior of the grill to get lower than 200 degrees F or much higher than 250 degrees F.  225F-250F is perfect.  On my grill, this is one burner at about "medium low," but your grill will likely be different.  WARNING:  Having the temperature too low can increase your risk for food poisoning.  Nobody wants that.

Check your grill every 15 minutes just to make sure that smoke is still coming out from around the edges.  When this stops, you'll replace the wood chips.  You want to open the lid of the grill as little as possible.

Generally, the breast will need to cook at least 30-45 minutes per pound, plus an additional 15-30 minutes for every time you open the grill.   Cook it until the internal temperature of the turkey is 156-160 degrees.  Remove the turkey and wrap it tightly in foil without removing the thermometer.  Let it set for 30 minutes or longer, and then carve and serve.