{"id":80,"date":"2010-02-01T19:04:32","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T19:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/?p=80"},"modified":"2010-02-21T23:56:25","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T23:56:25","slug":"bbq-chicken-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/bbq\/bbq-chicken-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"BBQ Chicken Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com<\/h4>\n<div id=\"attachment_161\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2331.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-161\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-161 \" title=\"BBQ Chicken\" src=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2331-300x199.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2331-300x199.png 300w, http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2331.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-161\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">BBQ Chicken<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In my lastest round of testing I decided to BBQ chicken thighs.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never really focused on BBQ chicken as it\u2019s not something I\u2019ve ever been fond of (over pork or beef).\u00a0 After a few tests I will say this though, BBQ chicken is now my favorite item of them all!BrineChicken loses it\u2019s moisture VERY quickly when you cook it.\u00a0 When you smoke meat you have to do so \u201clow and slow\u201d which means cooking it for a long time.\u00a0 Due to this, and the fact that chicken dries out quickly, you must add fluid to the meat.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of chicken, the easiest way to saturate the protein with liquid is to put the chicken in a brine solution.\u00a0 This does two things for you.\u00a0 The first is that it adds flavor to the meat from the salt and other spices you make the brine out of.\u00a0 The second thing is it adds the much needed moisture to the chicken and helps keep it from drying out during the long smoking process.\u00a0 I use the term \u201clong\u201d loosely here as chicken will smoke in right around three hours.\u00a0 This is much\u00a0quicker than other meats.\u00a0 Brining is simple really once you get used to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You will need the following to do this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Plastic bags to hold the brined chicken, or a large container that you can fit in your refrigerator<\/li>\n<li>1 Gallon Water<\/li>\n<li>2 cups Soy sauce<\/li>\n<li>1 cup Salt<\/li>\n<li>Sugar<\/li>\n<li>Spices (your choice here, depends on what you like)<\/li>\n<li>Chicken thighs (or whole chickens, I used thighs in this test)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Chicken Brining<\/h3>\n<p class=\"mceTemp\">The first thing you need to do is fill a large stock pot with water and leave room for the soy sauce and other ingredients.\u00a0 Add the other ingredients to the pot and set it on high.\u00a0 Once the liquid comes to a boil, let it boil for another 10 minutes and then shut the heat off.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_176\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2316.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-176\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-176\" title=\"Chicken Brining\" src=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2316-300x199.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2316-300x199.png 300w, http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2316.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-176\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chicken Brining<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"mceTemp\">Once the brine solution is nice and boiled it needs to cool down to room temperature.\u00a0 This is important because you don\u2019t want to boil the chicken in the hot brine or put the liquid in your refrigerator.\u00a0 If you put hot liquid in the refrigerator it will heat up the inside and create an unsafe food environment (bacteria will grow faster at higher temperatures.)\u00a0 If you put the chicken in the hot brine it will effectively cook the chicken, which is bad as well.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to wait a couple of hours for the solution to cool down you can submerge bags of ice (sealed tightly) into the liquid and keep replacing the melted ice until the brine is nice and cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mceTemp\">Armed with a room temperature (or cooled) brine, it is safe to put your chicken thighs into the brine.\u00a0 You must use a container that allows you to completely submerge the chicken pieces in the liquid.\u00a0 Look at my photos to see how I have the chicken thighs sealed in plastic bags.\u00a0 They are completely encased in the liquid and I pressed all air out of them as I closed the bags.\u00a0 If I had the room, I would put the chicken in a clean painters bucket (not a used one!) and store it in the refrigerator.\u00a0 Basically you want the chicken to be completely covered with liquid.\u00a0 Put the brined chicken in the refrigerator once it\u2019s submerged and sealed.\u00a0 If you are using a bucket, you may want to put a weight on top of the chicken to keep it from floating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mceTemp\">How long you brine your chicken really depends on what you are brining.\u00a0 For example, I do not recommend brining chicken breasts, as they do not contain enough fat to survive very well in the smoking process.\u00a0 For chicken thighs, and for this test, I brined my chicken for 10 hours.\u00a0 I wanted to simulate competition cooking where you aren\u2019t given a ton of time to prepare your meat once it\u2019s inspected and thats why I went with the time I did.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"mceTemp\">Rinse and Trim<\/h3>\n<p>Once the chicken had brined for 10 hours, I removed it from the brine solution and rinsed it off completely.\u00a0 This is another important steps as you want to rinse off any excess salt that stuck to the chicken during the process.\u00a0 After the thighs were rinsed I then dried them completely with paper towels (or hand towels that I washed before and after.)\u00a0 I put them in a large metal bowl after they were dried off and set them out for trimming.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_172\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2320.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-172\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-172\" title=\"Chicken Thigh Not Trimmed\" src=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2320-300x199.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2320-300x199.png 300w, http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2320.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-172\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chicken Thigh Not Trimmed<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Chicken thighs have a lot of extra skin, fat, and grisle on them that is not appealing to eat.\u00a0 Fat normally would render off in the smoker but given the short time chicken has to smoke, it won\u2019t have time to render completely.\u00a0 This is why it\u2019s important to trim off any excess fat (not quite all of it, but a good amount.)\u00a0 The chicken thighs have fat internal to the meat structure and that will be enough for your needs.\u00a0 For the skin you should trim it enough so that there is a nice flap of skin that just barely covers the top of the chicken thigh.\u00a0 Look at my picture to see the before and after trim of the thigh.\u00a0 In the first photo you can see where I have the skin spread out completely.\u00a0 It is still attached underneath but takes up a large area when spread out.\u00a0 I run the edge of my knife along the thigh and cut off the excess skin that is sticking out.\u00a0 This leaves me a nice cut of skin (not visible in the picture) that just barely covers the bottom of the thigh.<\/p>\n<p>I put all of the trimmed thighs back into the metal pan and proceeded to get ready for the next steps.<\/p>\n<h3>Oil and Rub<\/h3>\n<p>I go through many steps to ensure the chicken does not get dry while smoking and the oil is another one of those steps.\u00a0 I used peanut oil in this test which is readily available from the supermarket.\u00a0 I poured enough peanut oil into the bowl to coat the chicken thighs and rolled them over a few times to complete coat them in oil.\u00a0 I was careful not to tear the skin from the thighs as it is very easy to do so if you are not careful.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_168\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2324.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-168\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-168\" title=\"Chicken Spice Rub\" src=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2324-300x199.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2324-300x199.png 300w, http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2324.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-168\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chicken Spice Rub<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For the rub I mixed salt, sugar, garlic powder, chili powder, onion powder, and some other spices.\u00a0 You will have to experiment here with what you like as your tastes will vary.\u00a0 The spice rub\u00a0I use is much lighter than the one I use for pork and beef which is why it\u2019s not as red as you may expect.\u00a0 This is mainly due to my leaving out of the paprika.\u00a0 Another thing to keep in mind is that the brine has a lot of flavor in it.\u00a0 This means you do not have to use as much of a spice rub on the chicken as you would on pork or beef.\u00a0 Some people even leave the spice rub off completely since the brining process adds so much flavor.<\/p>\n<p>I liberally sprinkle the rub over the chicken thighs and turn them a few times in the process.\u00a0 I continue adding rub until they are coated pretty well all over.\u00a0 I was careful not to tear of the skin again here as turning the thighs can easily do this.\u00a0 Once I was satisfied with the level of spice coating, I moved to the next step.<\/p>\n<h3>Place and Smoke<\/h3>\n<p>I\u2019ve watch the show <a href=\"http:\/\/tlc.discovery.com\/tv\/bbq-pitmasters\/bbq-pitmasters.html\">BBQ Pitmasters<\/a>, on TLC, for just about every episode and one thing I saw them do was to put their chicken thighs into muffin pans.\u00a0 The cooking method allows the thighs to cook into a nice round shape.\u00a0 Sorry Myron, but I consider it a technique and won\u2019t be sending royalties your way anytime soon. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_164\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2329.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-164\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-164\" title=\"Chicken in Muffin Pans\" src=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2329-300x199.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2329-300x199.png 300w, http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2329.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-164\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chicken in Muffin Pans<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I put the chicken thighs into muffin pans and sprinkled rub over the top of them.\u00a0 I put the thighs in skin-side up and made sure the skin covered the exposed areas.\u00a0 I\u2019m only using a package of\u00a0eleven chicken thighs for this test so you will see that I am short one thigh for the twelve total spaces available in the pans.<\/p>\n<p>I turned my FEC-100 smoker up to 350 degrees and put the muffin pans in on the 2nd shelf from the top.\u00a0 I let them cook at this temperature for 30 minutes using Washington Apple wood for the fuel.\u00a0 After the 30 minutes passed I lowered the temperature to 226 degrees and cooked them for another 2 hours or so.\u00a0 The internal temperature of the thighs will go past 180 degrees which is fine for chicken thighs.\u00a0 The amount of fat in the thighs allows you plenty of room to play.<\/p>\n<h3>Sauce and Serve<\/h3>\n<div id=\"attachment_160\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2333.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-160\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-160\" title=\"BBQ Chicken - Different Plates\" src=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2333-300x199.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2333-300x199.png 300w, http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/IMG_2333.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-160\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">BBQ Chicken - Different Plates<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I pulled the thighs out of the smoker and let them rest for about 15 minutes.\u00a0 Resting is important as it lets the meat soak up any juices that were squeezed out in the cooking process.\u00a0 I pulled the thighs out of the muffin pans using tongs and plated them.\u00a0 On half of the thighs I put a homemade BBQ sauce I will talk about in another article.\u00a0 I left the other half of the thighs \u201cdry\u201d without any sauce added.\u00a0 Both types of chicken thighs came out tasting wonderful!\u00a0 You can\u2019t really tell from the pictures but they were very tender and had a great flavor.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the day I was very happy with the results and will be cooking more chicken in the future.\u00a0 I can\u2019t think of much I would change this next time around except maybe to try different finishing sauces.\u00a0 I hope you enjoyed this article and give BBQ chicken a try yourself in the future.<\/p>\n<h3>Eating Light Tip<\/h3>\n<p>Most BBQ before you add the sauce is light in fat since it has cooked long enough to render the fat away.\u00a0 The only thing really fattening in this dish\u00a0other than the sauce is the skin.\u00a0 If you want to remove a few calories, skip the sauce and peel the skin off before eating the chicken.\u00a0 I also pick out any fat that is left over when eating this dish.\u00a0 It\u2019s not much, but as I always say, every little bit helps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com In my lastest round of testing I decided to BBQ chicken thighs.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never really focused on BBQ chicken as it\u2019s not something I\u2019ve ever been fond of (over pork or beef).\u00a0 After a few tests I will say this though, BBQ chicken is now my favorite item of them [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[757,24,25],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbq","category-general","tag-bbq","tag-chicken","tag-thighs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}