The Texas BBQ Forum

Hey guys,
I have a comp. coming up this weekend, we have been doing great at getting calls on brisket and ribs but have yet to get a call on chicken. This comp. is in the central texas area and in the past we have always done chicken halves with little to no luck. This past weekend I decided to make a practice run with a new recipe and technigue. I'm looking for some constructive criticism! I got a nice package of chicken thighs, brined them in a simple brine ( 1 gallon of water, 1 cup of kosher salt, 1/2 cup suger, 2 tbsp black pepper, a couple cloves of garlic, and some onion slices ) I let it sit in the brine for about 1.5 hours, pulled out and patted dry. I then trimmed excess fat and skin to make "appealing", rubbed with a dry rub, and put skin side down in a aluminum pan with a "generous" amount of butter. Put on my homemade smoker using oak wood and kept the temp around 300 degrees. After about 1.5 hours I took them off the smoker, took out of the butter, sprinkled a little more rub and put them on my charcoal grill at about 300 degrees skin side up. I left them on the chacoal for about another 30 minutes, then sauced with a good homemade sauce that consisted of store bought bbq sauce for the base, some apricot preserves, a little honey, and some soy sauce. I let the sauce "cook" on the chicken for another 20 min. and then pulled off the pit. The chicken was some of the best, tender, JUICY chicken i've ever cooked BUT...... my skin was still a little on the rubbery side. What could I do different to get that perfect "bite through" skin? Should I scrape the fat off the skin before I cook them? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I do not put my on the smoker at all, just grill them.

Out of curiosity, is your cook a non-sanctioned? Just making sure that you can do thighs, as most sanctioned cook-offs in Texas would be IBCA or LSBS and require a fully-jointed half chicken.

For softer skin, you could add a little stock or juice and cover them the last third to half of the cook. I cook mine at about 275 or so...

Scrape the skin, keep them out of the smoker. Just my 2 cents.

thanks for the replies..... I guess I should have stated this in my original post, this Comp coming up is Non-sanctioned. The only rules they have in the chicken category are, no stuffed or wrapped entries, and no wings! Other than that its free roam. The past 3 years that we have done this comp. we did chicken halves and they turned out really good but havent ever got a call, so i decided to just try something different this year.

Awesome. Some don't, but I definitely scrape skins, cook in a pan, and cover part of the way through. It will steam the skin and soften it.

Best of luck in your cook!

If it were me, I would cook a smaller chicken around 3.5 lbs. Turn in 1/2 chicken Then cut the breast off 2 other halves with an electric knife and put big breast medallions on the side of the chicken in the box.

Well guys I tried your advice and our chicken turned out great for the cookoff, but it didn't place out of 82 teams...... guess i'll try something new the next time i guess. On the other hand, our brisket came in 1st place, so I was happy about that lol. thanks everyone for the responses

What did you ultimately go with, and what did you end up doing?