Cooking turkey in a bag, yes or no?

[crazelion]

I host Thanksgiving every year and have never cooked the turkey in a Reynold's oven bag. Will the bird darken? Is it better to cook in the bag vs not? All this talk about Thanksgiving and cooking techiniques has me intrigued. Please tell me your hints/secrets/best advice for cooking the turkey in a bag. Thank you !!
(I will be cooking two 13-15 lb birds)

Yes I love cooking Turkey in my Reynold's oven bag.

 

[tasha99]

I started using an oven bag a couple years ago, and it comes out better than in a roasting pan (at least for me). The turkey is not steamed, it browns, and it cooks faster.

Those who say the turkey is steamed or boiled have never done it, or they somehow did it wrong.

 

[mhsjax]

No bag for me....
I suppose I don't like steamed/boiled turkey.

They don't steam or boil. If that is the taste and texture you get, then you aren't doing it right. I have done it both ways, the bag was more brown and moister and roasting, but to each their own. YOu can't call crispy brown skin on a bird boiled or steamed.

 

[mhsjax]

Ick, no. A turkey should be roasted, not steamed, and certainly not steamed in plastic.

OMG, for that last time, it in't steamed. Crispy and brown skin isn't boiled or steamed.

 

[DisneyForLife]

Love the bags, everybody requests I use them since the first time. It is the most moist turkey we ever had and I have a family who loves the skin and it comes out nice and crispy.
There is no way this method of cooking would be considered steamed.

 

[linnylu]

I am glad to see this post. DH has used the Reynolds bag for the last 5 years or so. Our turkey always gets golden brown and is very moist. This year he is doing his reserve duty, so I am cooking the turkey. I am still going to use the bag after reading this post. We may buy a fresh turkey this year instead of frozen. Can anyone please tell me how to insert the meat thermometer so I can tell if the turkey is done? I never know how to do this. I know it should go in the thigh, but where is that? And I know it shouldn't touch bone.

Also, what do you brine your turkey in? I have no clue what type of container to use for a 24 pound bird!

 

[asktriplets]

The Reynolds Oven Bags are made with a mix of heat-resistant nylon (from their FAQ on the website). I think this is FDA approved to be food-safe up to 400degrees. I don't typically use the FDA's approval as my "safe" guideline.

I did a search on this and found some blog talk from some website that cites research (see below). I tried to look at the research from the "Journal Material, Sci. Letter" link and could only see the beginning of the paper.
Looks like "polymide 6,6" is the nylon and produces toxic derivatives at certain temps over a certain time.

Without digging deeper, I see that there may well be credible research out there that shows that this stuff may not be a great choice. Sure there are lots of not great choices out there (teflon, etc), but I'm choosing to skip this one.






Dorado-Rodelo et al, Effect of ovenproof plastic films on the quality of spotted rose snapper fillets during frozen storage, Packag. Technol. Sci. 2007 (specifies Reynold bag material)
Soto-Valdez and Gramshaw, Cyclopentanone and cyclopentanone derivatives as degradation products of polyamide 6,6, Journal Material. Sci. Letter, 2000



hmw0029 at 1:24PM on 12/15/09
@hmw0029: Thank you. I appreciate your research effort and though I probably can't access those journal articles without a subscription, I'll check things out on Google Scholar to see what else I can find.


Susquehanna at 1:38PM on 12/15/09
Yep.

Both article abstracts from the Journal of Material Science Letters and the one from Food Additives and Contaminants confirm that volatile compounds from nylon oven bags migrate into food.


Susquehanna at 1:56PM on 12/15/09
Ah, wait - the first article hotlink above was cited by hmw0029 and confirms that nylon cooking bags emit volatile compounds.

The second article hotlink is one I found on Google Scholar and confirms the migration of volatile compounds from nylon into chicken. It also suggests that the amount of VOC "can be" assumed to be harmless. Right, right.