2nd Run Chicken Practice

mcyork28

mcyork28

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I signed up for my first comp which will be at the end of this month. It's chicken and ribs only. Sort of a soft entry for new teams in the PNWBA.

This is my second run at chicken thighs. Could use some work. Tasted pretty good. They weren't the juciest thighs I have ever made and I definitely need to work on getting them evenly sized.

My process:

1. Scraped the skins and trimmed the edges off.
2. Brined for 2 hours in Oakridge Gamechanger.
3. Rinsed, seasoned the bottom and under the skin with Meat Church Holy Gospel, replaced the skin and seasoned with Loot & Booty Chicken.
4. Cooked on the grate of an Oklahoma Joe's Bronco for an hour.
5. Put into a pan with some parkay and cooked covered for an hour.
6. Dunked in sauce put back on the grate for another 15 min.

Any advice?

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Thanks,

Matt
 
They look great. I don't cook thighs for comps, I am more of a leg man, and I don't cook for nearly as long as you did. Mine are usually about 60-70 minutes tops. Try your same method at shorter times, and pull at 170-180 (try varying temps in that range) until you find the sweet spot.
 
Thank you for the feedback.

I was actually kind of surprised and didn't understand why people on Youtube were cooking thighs so long. I think if I shorten the cook time like you suggested I will have a jucier end product. Those thighs were close to 200 when I pulled them.

Do you think legs score as well as thighs? Seems like they would be less prep work.


ronbrad62 said:
They look great. I don't cook thighs for comps, I am more of a leg man, and I don't cook for nearly as long as you did. Mine are usually about 60-70 minutes tops. Try your same method at shorter times, and pull at 170-180 (try varying temps in that range) until you find the sweet spot.
Click to expand...
 
I was taught:

After scrapping the fat, and trimming down to about a 4" piece. Season under the skin. Then replace the skin and season the top. let them sit about 30 minutes. place in a pan and in the smoker (250-275) for bout 10 to 15 minutes. Pull them back out. Take one stick of butter and cut into 1 tbsp squares and spread out through the pan. (A shortcut would be to coat with squeeze butter) Cover and place back on the smoker for about 90 minutes. When temp is 170, pull, dunk in sauce, place back on for 10 minutes to set the sauce.

That's how I do 'em.
 
I would try leaving them in the brine longer than 2 hours. Also injecting them would help with some moisture. 200 seems about right for a finishing temp, I usually shoot for 195 myself. Sounds like you have a good process down, now just time to tweak 1 thing at a time until you get it how you want!
 
Those are looking awesome. You are really close to what a lot of teams are doing with thighs. As suggested, perhaps brine a little longer or inject or both. Now, it's just about little tweaks here or there. If you not busy on Sunday, there is a KCBS contest in Albany which looks like is about an hour away. We will be there as well as many PNWBA teams.
 
As far as using legs over thighs, it may be regional as far as what your judges are expecting. I have always used legs and won in the first BY comp that I did, and have been in the top 5 a few times. They require less work. A friend of mine who always did thighs liked the way mine looked and finally decided to try them at a comp we did together and he won chicken. Try it for grins at home and see if you like it.
 
GrillBillie_D said:
Those are looking awesome. You are really close to what a lot of teams are doing with thighs. As suggested, perhaps brine a little longer or inject or both. Now, it's just about little tweaks here or there. If you not busy on Sunday, there is a KCBS contest in Albany which looks like is about an hour away. We will be there as well as many PNWBA teams.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I didn't realise there was a comp that close. Not sure if I can make it or not but I'm going to try.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk
 
I think you are off to a good start. We did our 1st competition last year and I took the lead on chicken and sizing was the biggest obstacle for me too. Not only did I have lines on the cutting board, but I weighed each thigh as I was trimming. About the only difference in our method was we started in the pan uncovered, then covered for 40 minutes, the glazed on a cooling rack for 5 or 6 minutes.

One of the better tips I got was to prep at home, then I matched them up and cut squares from a disposable cutting board to use when I vacuum sealed them. Oh, I also trimmed off little imperfections with a chefs knife right before dunking in sauce, you could not tell at all.

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Stop scraping the fat off the skin. You are scraping off flavor and moisture. Scraping skin is so 2014.
 
My two cents. Don’t scrape the skin. Don’t put rub under the skin it taste like dirt because it does not all dissolve. Cook it hot. I don’t look at it before 205. Find a sauce that is thin and gives a nice glaze. This all worked for us to get a couple of heavy square trophies. Good luck.
 
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