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Idiot Savant Chicken

71-South

71-South

is Blowin Smoke!
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Actually savant idiot chicken...

A month ago we got a perfect 180 in chicken at Buckner. Today, with nearly the exact same recipe, we took 53rd of 54 in Lee's Summit. It was a combination of Table of Death (I think), plus taking 5th place at said table (ouch.) It was a *tiny* bit tighter than last time, but looked and tasted identical. Weird stuff.

Important: This is not a complaint by any means. Schtuff happens. I'm looking for input to improve my craft.

I found out afterward that my partner had purchased Smart Chicken instead of regular like last time. I didn't notice it, though, when sampling.

So, I guess we'll stick w/ the same recipe in 3 weeks at our next comp (cooking 5-10 minutes longer). My thought is we'll find out whether the 180 was an aberration or the near DAL was.

Does that sound right?

Thanks much,
Bret
 
Ha. That's the truth on chicken. We were fortunate on brisket, though, so it wasn't a total loss.
 
I'm not sure what you do to get tender skin, but sometimes the Smart chicken we get has a pretty heavy fat layer. Some methods of getting bite through skin that work most of the time won't work with really heavy fat on the skin.
 
Why don't you post EXACTLY what your process is - ya know, just so we can help ya figure it out. Nobody will shig :)

Seriously, I wouldn't worry about making any changes at this point. Like Ron said, sounds like you may have just had a "bug day".

Blessings on your next cook!
 
MikeJ65 said:
I'm not sure what you do to get tender skin, but sometimes the Smart chicken we get has a pretty heavy fat layer. Some methods of getting bite through skin that work most of the time won't work with really heavy fat on the skin.
Click to expand...

It's not the "white" fat that is a concern, but avoid the "yellow" fat or you'll find out how good of a cook one must be on chicken.:thumb:
 
Thanks all. We're going back to regular chicken, if for no other reason than it's cheaper and we did better w/ it. We're also cooking just a tad bit longer. We'll see how it goes.
 
I'm afraid your experience is similar to mine. Chicken is *strange* this way... As a result, I'm not much of a fan of it. I've never had a perfect score, but I had a string of top 5's in chicken, then same recipe, twice in a row, not DAL but right there at it... Go figure...

Dont change, and as you said, go back to that earlier chicken. Slight variations in enhancement solutions and frankly chicken diets can have effects on how your spices interact with it and go from that perfect balance to an ever-so-slight-off flavor.

Other times, I truly think it's TOD vs. TOA thing... I guess I'd gotten the TOA's for a while then a string of TOD's. It's just the way it goes.
 
I would not change anything because of one contest. I wouldn't change anything until the 4th or 5th bad contest. Look at this weekend in Colorado. The biggest teams in the country were all there. Leading the standings in KCBS is Iowa's Smokey D's. By their standards, I'm sure they think they had a bad showing. I bet you $100 they don't change a thing.
 
Yeah don't change. Though really look at the scores and see if maybe it was a low scoring table in general or if there might be some real indicators that you could have done something wrong that you didn't catch.

We were lucky to have 180 ribs earlier this year and at the next comp I swore they were even better and they were 20th out of 40 :becky:. Then they didn't hit again, but just this last weekend they were back on track. Give it one more then rethink.

Chicken it the most finicky of them all though in terms of hitting tables that like it or don't like it. Our chicken has hit 1st twice this year and has never really varied at each contest, but man it can be hit or miss.
 
chambersuac said:
Why don't you post EXACTLY what your process is - ya know, just so we can help ya figure it out. Nobody will shig :)

Seriously, I wouldn't worry about making any changes at this point. Like Ron said, sounds like you may have just had a "bug day".

Blessings on your next cook!
Click to expand...

It took way too much shigging to come up w/ that method to just give it away.

Seriously, though, everything I do in comps, I learned off of this site. :)
 
Just a thought. You mentioned that your chicken was a little "tighter" than before. A little tighter at boxing time can potentially mean A LOT tighter by the time the judges get to it.
 
Give it 3 contests.

We started the year with a modified chicken program. First time out, we hit 3rd out of 109 teams in Triple Threat in Delaware. Nice! The new program rocks!

Next contest we get 5th..from the bottom. Then middle of the pack. Then 33rd.

OK, back to last year's chicken program. With one exception, our chicken hasn't been out of the top ten since.

The point is: you can't really know which contest was the fluke. Cook three, then you know if you have to make a change or not.
 
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