Sous Vide Whole Turkey

This is a really bad idea

The skin will be total trash

Yea I agree with this statement. I am all for SV, but I don’t think this is the right application for it. I could be wrong

Like others have said, doing it whole is going to be difficult. I broke one down and sous vide the pieces and then roasted them to get skin crispy. Tasted fine, but was way too much work for any pay off.

I've made sous vide whole chickens for frying. The solution to transferring heat to the cavity is the addition of liquid to the bag.

The liquid (we did master stock) fills the cavity of the bird and transfers heat to ensure even cooking.

Because we were doing a second application of heat, the chickens were cooked ahead of time & rapidly chilled.

We did 12 hours @ 155°F then cooled them in an ice bath to below 41°F in 2 hours. We also removed the chickens from the bag (reserving the liquid for sauce), patted them dry, & placed them on a rack in the fridge to dry out the skin.

To serve, we fried the birds @275°F until the skin was nicely browned & crisp & the internal temperature hit above 165°F (about 16-18 minutes).

If you want browned skin, you will need to roast or fry the bird after sous vide.

IMPO I wouldn't attempt this on a turkey over 8-10 pounds.

Hope this info helps.

I too am worried a bit about the skin and meat texture. I have worried about that with chicken. Just looking at new ways to try things. For me the ability to cook ahead/have flexibility on timing is key.

A whole lot of nope.

The dark and white meats are cooked at different temperatures, and treated as if they were two separate animals. I definitely would not do the whole bird.

For the record, turkey hind quarters cooked sous vide are absolutely delicious.

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Sous vide Turkey

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Five and a half days to cook a bird. Let's see how this turns out!