Temperature Histories at Critical Points and Recommended Cooking Time for Whole Turkeys Baked in a Conventional Oven

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Time‐temperature histories and cooking times were determined for turkeys baked at 162.8°C from 4.44°C to an endpoint of 82.2°C in the thigh joint or breast. Turkeys (128) in five weight classes from 5.9 to 10.8 kg (0.9 kg increments) were equally divided into fresh, frozen, stuffed, unstuffed, and cooked shielded or unsheilded groups. The slowest heating point was either the wing joint or stuffing geometric center. Cooking time for unsheilded turkeys was 155 min plus 11 min/kg, unstuffed, and 200 min plus 8.8 min/kg, stuffed. Median cooking loss was 23%. Shielding of breasts prolonged cooking time. The cooking endpoint of 82.2°C in the thigh joint provided adequate lethality against Salmonella in the slowest heating points of both stuffed and unstuffed birds.