Comp Chicken

I love preparing chicken for a competition. :doh: I do what a lot of others do, I think, and remove the skin, scrape the fat, etc... The last contest we did I prepared the chicken at home before leaving town. This made life easier once I was on-site and plan on preparing my chicken at home from now on.

When I prepared my chicken and got the skin back on the thighs, I placed the pieces in a Pyrex dish, covered it with plastic wrap, and placed it in the fridge. I did all of this the evening before I left for the competition, so total refrigeration time was about 36 hours.

This is the first time I've ever prepared chicken at home prior to cooking it at a competition, so I was not real sure what to expect. I know I should have done a few test runs at home before the comp..... Once cooked, my chicken was good, but not nearly good enough and I knew this at first bite. It had the flavor, but the chicken was dry around the edges. Next to the bone, nice and moist.

After thinking about it, I'm wondering if by preparing the chicken at home, removing the fat, then sitting in the fridge for that amount of time, if the chicken is not just drying out from the time I remove it from the package.

So my question is, because I know I'm not the only one preparing chicken at home, how do you keep the thighs, and skins, from drying out? There are a few products out there I can think of that would probably keep it from drying, such as olive oil, but it seems to me that these products would be considered a seasoning.

I do not brine my chicken, but I'm not opposed to it. Could a brine rehydrate the meat?

Thanks everyone for the replies. Good info here.

One thing I would like to recommend to some folks is an Engel fridge/freezer. I use one of these for comps. If you don't know what an Engel is, here is a link to some good friends of mines website talking about the Engels.
http://www.expeditionexchange.com/engel/

Don't let the price scare you. I promise you it's worth every single penny!

I have the Engel 35 quart. I bought it new in 2002 and have never had a flicker of trouble out of it. In fact, the thing ran for about 3 years continuous. There is only one moving part on a swing motor, so it's pretty reliable. And it will freeze! I've gotten it down to -13 before. I bought this to use in my truck when was traveling to off-road parks on a regular basis. The 35 worked great for that application, but now I'd like a littler bigger one.

The reason I bring this up is because it works well for competition BBQ. It has both a AC and DC power cord, so you can store your goodies in the Engel at home while packing, then move it to your car when you're ready to go. With the 12v plug, it will maintain your desired temp for about 2-days on a car battery without killing the battery. It only pulls something like .5 amps.

But the Engel is what I store my chicken in after trimming. It sits out of the way and stays closed.

Other companies make a similar product, such as ARB. The Engel and ARB share the same swing motor. I'm not sure about other brands.

I about got killed when the wife saw the purchase on the credit card. Even in 2002 the price was just shy of $800. But after a few trips to the grocery store, the wife was hooked. Ice Cream in the Engel allows you time to make other stops on the way home. Soon after, we had two Engels, one in her car 24/7 and mine. Then we got a divorce so I lost one. It was worth it.

Anyway, thought I'd toss that out there.