Has anyone SVd a large piece of meat?  I'd like to try a whole chicken, turkey or Boston butt and then finish it in the pit.

I've never seen expandable bags that would accommodate something of that size and I don't know if my Food Saver can create a suitable vacuum. 


I have this one.

All advice is welcome.

The largest I have done are Butts. I had cured them to make ham, bagged and SV then, smoked and finished in a 500° oven.

I have 2 machines. A Vacmaster VP 215, which would probably easily do a chicken not sure a turkey. The suction sealer is a Pro380, it will do a 15" bag, that is what I used for the butts.

Not sure on the SV whole chicken, as the water would no be in contact with the inside, maybe if it was spatched or done in halves.

probably more knowledgeable folks on here when it come to the SV chicken thing.

Good luck, hope to see it when you do it.

I have a roll of 11 1/2" wide bagging material that would probably hold a whole chicken if you left both ends long enough to seal. However, since chickens have a relatively large cavity, I'm not sure what affect it would have on time and temperature. I've Sous Vide a lot of large roast but in my opinion, the leaner ones benefit most from SV. Ones with lots of connective tissue remain moist and get tender with enough time, but unless you SV them at a higher temperature, the fat does not get fully rendered and the resulting texture is somewhat less than desirable. 

I did a butt a few years ago. I used a bag made from a 11" roll and it easily fit. It came out good, but not any better than just smoking from start to finish, so wasn't worth the effort for me.

I have done butts and briskets as well without a problem.    I would think a whole chicken or turkey would be a problem for SV because of the cavity.    That would trap a whole lot of air, would buoyancy be an issue?

Maybe you should stuff the chicken with a duck that is stuffed with a dove stuffed with a quail so there's a smaller cavity QauilDoDucken???

I'd be nervous about this one too as I seem to fight floating issues all the time without the trying to cook something with a cavity...veggies are hard to get all of the air out of the bag.

I'm puttin' this on the back burner.

You could potentially try cutting it into pieces, vac seal, and sous vide.

I''ve had luck halving the chickens. No cavity to worry about; fits easily in a bag. Maybe spatchcocked with a larger bag?