Debone Turkey Before Refridgerating?

[amldaley]

I am roasting a turkey tonight for an event tomorrow afternoon. In researching safe handling, I see that I am supposed to debone the cooked turkey before refridgerating?????????????????????????? Since when and why?? I am going to be up all freakin' night as it is!

Is this REALLY crucial? And why? Anyone else do this?

[kransden]

I haven't died or been sick yet. :D

[tnrnchick74]

me either...we always leave AT LEAST the drumsticks on the bone

[mousemom]

Sorry, but we do take the meat off the bone before we put in the refrigerator. The idea is that when you leave the meat on the bone, the turkey does not cool down quickly enough even in the refrigerator and stays at an unsafe temperature for too long, potentially allowing bacteria to grow. So we cut the meat off and separate into smaller containers (ziploc bags/storage containers) that will cool more quickly when we refrigerate. Drumsticks/wings we leave whole, since they are small enough to begin with. We follow the same principle with any large, hot item that needs to be refrigerated - like separating pots of soup into smaller containers, etc.

That being said, my family never did this growing up and it never seemed to make anybody sick.