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Chicken prep question.

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esselle

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This year we will be competing in a few competitions in the U.S. and up until this year our (British BBQ Society) rules haven't allowed us to do any preparing of meats prior to meat inspection. So I have no problems with ribs, pork and brisket but my question is to those of you that pre-prep chicken thighs the day before a comp, do you have any issues with the meat (and/or skin) drying out or spoiling in anyway? (especially if you are skin scraper).
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Scott.
 
i usually prep on wednesday. i place in 2 gallon freezer bagon the top shelf of the fridge then transfer to a cooler with ice thursday nite. never any problems. "so far"
 
esselle said:
thanks...do either of you pre scrape the skin?
Click to expand...

everytime. after im done i put them in a ziplock sandwich bag and put the bag in the same 2 gallon bag as the thighs. when it comes time to brine on friday i just remove the bag with the skins and pour the brine in. :thumb:
 
I hated chicken, like many others in comps, I also wrecked it several times during comps. Until I decided that the yardbird wasn't going to win and that I would dedicate two packs of thighs per week until I got the method down pat. I do not pre-prep my chicken at all, I prefer to select it from a top secret grocery store that has fresh, never frozen chicken, and I now only prep about 8 thighs to get the six I want.

I do scrape and trim and knock the knuckles off, but my trim time has been cut down to about five to ten minutes per thigh, which I can live with. Here's a shot of one of my turn ins from last year, followed by one I wrecked previously.

basinchick.jpg


This one was a total disaster, too much smoke drew up unscraped skin, I sauced it heavily to stick the skin down, placed in the middle of the pack with it, but was totally unhappy with the end result.

cheneychicken.jpg
 
southernstyle said:
everytime. after im done i put them in a ziplock sandwich bag and put the bag in the same 2 gallon bag as the thighs. when it comes time to brine on friday i just remove the bag with the skins and pour the brine in. :thumb:
Click to expand...
Perfect ....thanks again.:-D
 
as soon as possible I trim, place on rack in fridge a few hrs, brine a couple hrs, back on rack in fridge till time to go in cooker next morning, just before going in cooker season and cook @ 350 in butter half pans. skin drying out = good.
 
We pre-prep ours a day or 2 ahead of time(we are scrapers). The morning of the cook, I brine ours for 3 hours. It seems to be working ok for us so far.
 
esselle said:
This year we will be competing in a few competitions in the U.S. and up until this year our (British BBQ Society) rules haven't allowed us to do any preparing of meats prior to meat inspection.
Click to expand...

I'm confused...I thought KCBS comps didn't allow prep before inspection, yet I see from all the replies that a lot of cooks do prep ahead of time. Is pre-prep allowed for chicken, but not pork, brisket, or ribs?
 
El Pistolero said:
I'm confused...I thought KCBS comps didn't allow prep before inspection, yet I see from all the replies that a lot of cooks do prep ahead of time. Is pre-prep allowed for chicken, but not pork, brisket, or ribs?
Click to expand...

You can trim, scrape, etc all the meats. You just can't rub, inject, season, etc. Only knife work pre inspection.
 
I pretrim. I have not had aproblem with anything drying out. I don't scrape the skins as when the fat renders during cooking = flavor. The few times I did scrape it was diasterous, otherwise no problems with butchering ahead of time.
 
I trim ahead and seal them up in my Foodsaver vacuum sealer. That always keeps em nice and fresh!
 
I hate prepping chicken so much I usually dedicate an off saturday afternoon n a bottle a vodka. I buy a case of chicken and prep it all then vacumpac n freeze. I can get 3-4 comps done at a time.
 
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