Brining is a Verb: Dialing in our Competition Chicken

Over the years, our chicken entries have been pretty good.  Nothing less than a 20th place with a few trophies over the last two years.  We have made some tweaks here and there, but the basic recipe says the same.  This year, we are getting away from our homemade brine and going with the Game Changer Brine from Oakridge BBQ.  It smells a lot like my brine.  If anything though, it is just easier to make since I just dump it in water, boil, chill, and it is ready to use.  But, I started thinking, do I have to use water as my brine base?  Why not a liquid that has flavor.  So, I thought, I am cooking chicken, so why not use chicken broth.  Off to the R&D labs we went...

I made a batch of the brine following the directions on the back.  All I did was substitute chicken broth for water.  Brought it to a boil, chilled it down, and brined my chicken.

After one hour of brine time, I removed the chicken from the brine and rinsed with cold water.  Then, I rubbed both sides of the legs with Butchers Honey BBQ Rub.

I whipped up a batch of sauce while I waited.

After letting the legs sit for about an hour, I placed them on the smoker at 275 F.  Then, I followed our process to the letter:

After 30 minutes, dunk in sauce, place legs in pan skin side down.  Place a pat of butter on the top of each leg.  Place back in smoker.

After 30 more minutes, dunk again in sauce, place legs on the rack, skin side up, and apply a light coat of rub.

After 30 more minutes, 90 minutes total cook time, remove from smoker.  Enjoy with beverage of choice.

I gotta say, I like the chicken broth as my brine base.  The legs had a deep chicken favor, as well as being very moist, tender, and juicy.  I am glad we tried this out before the season.  Now, the big question, will the judges approve?  We will find out.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

Saucy Legs: A Little Competition Chicken Practice

I have had a few windows of opportunity to get some practice in for the upcoming BBQ season.  Over the holidays, before all of the snow and very bitter cold, I did get a chance to BBQ some chicken legs.

Our process is simple.  Two hour brine, One and a half hours on the smoker, etc...  Here is the detailed process.

First, we tried a new brine.  Usually we make our own brine.  We have done very well over the years with this brine.  Chicken has always been a bright spot in our line up.  But, we are looking to make a little tweak to move up and win.  So, we tried Oakridge Game Changer Brine to see what it would do for our chicken legs.  The ingredient list is simple, just how we like it: Sea salt, raw cane sugar, garlic, black pepper, onion, spices, chilies, blackstrap molasses, maltodextrin.  No fillers, no MSG, no artificial colors, flavors or additives.  Minus the orange juice, it looks  and smells a lot like our brine.  The smell from the brine on the stove was intoxicating.  I could not wait to see how it would change our final product.  The guidelines on the package recommend two to three hours of brining time.  So, once cooled, we let our legs sit in the brine for three hours.

After three hours in the brine, I rinsed with cold water, patted them dry, then rubbed liberally with a mix of Butchers Honey Rub and Oakridge Secret Weapon Pork and Chicken rub.  The Butchers adds a nice sweet component and the Oakridge adds a little spice.

Then, I placed on the smoker at 275 F with a few chunks of pecan in the ash pan.  While the legs were cooking, I mixed up a batch of our sauce.

After 30 minutes of cook time, the legs get dunked in the sauce and placed in a pan skin side down.  On top of each leg we place a pat of butter.  The butter helps to get that nice bite through skin that the judges like.

After 30 minutes in the pan, we dunk the legs one more time in the sauce, add a bit more rub, then place them back on the smoker for 30 more minutes.  We also ramp our temperature up to 325 F for the last 30 minutes of cook time.  This helps to set the sauce and crisp up the skin.

So, at 275 F that is 30 minutes skin side up, 30 minutes skin side down in a pan after a dunk in sauce with a bit of butter, then a final dunk in sauce with a rub touch up and 30 minutes at 325 F skin side up.

At this point, I would give you a review of the Oakridge brine.  But to be fair, I was getting over a head cold and my sense of taste was not very good.  So, I will save my review for the next time we try this brine.  But, I can tell you that Hope polished off a whole chicken leg.  Why is this a great feat?  She does not like dark meat.  But, she kept on eating because she loved the flavor.  Hope says it was the best chicken leg we have ever made.  So, perhaps things are looking up for a top five chicken entry this year.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

Slappin my Chicken: Slap Yo Daddy Chicken Rub Review and Chicken Practice

A couple of weeks ago we did a practice chicken cook to try and perfect our recipe for 2013.  At the same time we tried a new rub:  Harry Soo's Slap Yo Daddy Chicken Rub...

After opening the package, we performed the obligatory sniff and finger test.  The chili, onion, garlic, and cumin flavors where obvious upon nasal spectroscopy.  The finger test added a taste of citrus that brought it all together.  This was a rub I could fall in love with.  But, the biggest test was up next: competition style chicken...

We are trying to get away from thighs.  I love a good chicken thigh, smoked to perfection with a blend of rub and sauce.  What I do not like is trimming a scraping a thigh to get bite through skin.  So, we have been experimenting with legs and thighs this off season.  First, I started with some whole chicken legs...

Using poultry shears, I separated the leg from the thigh, removed the knuckles from the thigh bone, and marinaded overnight in Italian dressing.  In the morning, I removed from the marinade, patted dry and placed into foil pans.  Then, I seasoned both sides with a coating of Slap Yo' Daddy Chicken rub...

Once the rub became "wet", I applied a second coat on the top...

The chicken then hung out in the refrigerator all day until hitting the smoker.  The cooking process is as follows:

30 minutes on the rack, 275 F, skin up.
Dunk in sauce, placed into a foil pan, skin side down, 30 minutes at 275 F.
Remove from pan and place on rack, skin side up.  Applied sauce at start, then after 15 minutes.  Ramped temperature up to 300 F.  Pulled after 30 minutes.  So, that is a total cook time of 1.5 hours for those keeping score.  Here is how they looked:

I have to say, I love the SYD chicken rub.  I nice mix of spices with a bit of heat.  Actually, if you go a little heavy handed, it is a lot of kick.  But, after a night in the frig, the heat did mellow out a bit.  So, if you are adverse to spice, watch how much you put on your yardbird.  I will be backing off the rub a bit for competition.

As for the chicken, I am liking the tender and moist meat that the higher cook temperature is creating.  The skin on half of the thighs was bite through and the skin on all of the legs was bite through.  I believe that for our first competition this year, we will be turning in legs that are separated from the thighs on a whole leg.

Overall, the Slap Yo' Daddy Chicken rub will be part of our first competition.  The blend of spices and citrus flavor is perfect with the dressing marinade and sauce.  Rating?  3.5 out of 4 stars.  I can't wait to try this rub on some other cuts of meat...

Thanks for stopping by...

Bill

KCBS Competition Practice. Chicken, Part 1 of 4

Well everyone, I looked at the calendar this morning and guess what?  It is getting close to our first competition of the year, the Roc City Rib Fest in Rochester, NY.  Only 90 days to go, so it is time to start practicing and perfecting our recipes for the year.

For those who are new to competition BBQ, there are four categories for turn in: Chicken (regular or cornish game hen), Ribs (Pork only, baby backs or spares), Pulled Pork (Must be from whole shoulder five pounds or more in weight), Beef Brisket (point, flat, or both.  Cannot be corned beef).  Today we will focus on our first turn in, chicken.

Chicken is the first turn in of the day at high Noon.  You can turn your box in during a 10 minute window starting at 11:55 am.  Concentration on cooking chicken helps keep your mind off of the impending turn ins.  Your boxes are built with garnish and you are ready to roll.  Once you pull the cooked thighs off of the smoker, you pick our your best six (we cook 12), put them in the box, and run off to the judges tent to turn in your box.

Some say that chicken is the hardest category to cook.  We have done well with chicken at Three Dogs BBQ, scoring no less than 17th in the category, except for one aberration at Roc City last year when we tried a failed experiment with chicken legs...

I hate preparing for chicken.  You bone the thighs, trim to size, and scrape the back of the skin to remove the fat.  All in the search for the perfect moist piece of chicken with bite through skin that doesn't pull off in one big flap when you take a bite.  Here is a like to our prior efforts and the work that goes into preparing for this cut of meat: Competition Style Chicken

This year, we are looking to get a nice, uniform piece of chicken with a little less work.  So, here it goes...

First, we bought some leg quarters from our butcher and separated the thigh from the leg with a pair of poultry shears...

A side comment here.  If you have not ever used poultry shears, you don't know what you are missing. Cutting through bone was a snap.  Splurge and get yourself a pair.  But, I digress...

We removed the knuckle on each side of the thigh bone with the shears and trimmed the long, stringy pieces of skin off of the thigh so that we get a nice, uniform thigh.  

Next, we marinaded the chicken in a bottle of Italian salad dressing for about 6 hours.  After the marinade, we pulled out, drained away the marinade, and sprinkled a liberal coat of Butchers Honey Rub on all sides of the thigh.  I arranged nicely and place outside to keep cool until the smoker was ready.  We also snuck some wings into the mix for some variety...

This time around, we used a temperature of 275 F in the smoker with 50:50 hickory/peach in the ash pan.  Our hopes are that the higher heat will allow us to obtain perfect, bite through skin.

We placed the chicken on the smoker for 1 1/2 hours:  30 minutes skin side up, 30 minutes skin side down, 30 minutes skin side up after dunking in sauce.  For sauce, just use 1 cup of your favorite sauce mixed with 1/4 cup of honey.

Here is the final product:

Wings...

Thighs...

Before you say something, yes, they look ugly.  But, it was midnight and I wanted to go to bed.  My main objective was to test the flavor profile.  We passed the test for sure.  I like how the Italian dressing adds a layer of flavor to the overall profile.  A winner for sure.  Everyone at work scarfed them down in no time.

But, the skin was not bite through.  We will have a few more practices before May to perfect our method.  But, we were not successful in our first attempt with this new method.  If all else fails, we can go back to our old cooking method that we know works.

Thanks for stopping by...

Bill

Saucy Thighs...

Here was my last practice cook before Nelsonville with chicken thighs.  I went with the standard grocery store value pack thighs instead of what my butcher offers since they are bigger.  I was looking for more skin on a bigger thigh.  While my butchers thighs taste better and are not steroided up, they are a bit on the smallish side...

I marinaded in Stubbs Chicken marinade, wrapped the scraped skins around the meat, and dusted with Butchers Honey Rub:

Onto a 250 F smoker with hickory and peach in the ash pan.  After 30 minutes, dunk in sauce, then I placed in a foil pan skin side down.  Then, after 30 more minutes, I placed on the rack, skin side up and re-sauced:

30 more minutes while ramping the temperature up to 350 F...

I got what I was looking for:  a bigger, more consistently sized thigh with bite through skin and good taste.

Thanks for stopping by...

Bill

Competition Style Chicken

After seasoning Ole Blue, I threw some yardbird on the racks for some chicken practice...

We use thighs for competition.  They are nice and juicy and full of flavor.  The only problem is, they take a ton of work.

So you get bite through skin, you need to remove the skin and scrape the fat off of the back side...

I use a single blade, disposable razor.  Just hold one end of the skin and pull back...

I used to use a butter knife, but it tends to rip the skin if you are not careful.  The razor is perfect.  It is a tough job that in my opinion, is the worst in the competition BBQ world.  You would not believe the amount of fat that comes off of 10 chicken thighs.  Nasty!

Anyway, after scraping the fat, I trim the thigh to ensure the skin will wrap around the meat.

I am also trying some legs to see if I can get nice bite through skin on them with less work.

So, I tossed the chicken and a fryer in a batch of Poultry Brine and let them go for a 6 hour swim.

I seasoned the thighs and legs with Butchers Honey BBQ rub, then wrapped the skin back around the thigh meat.  I also did a beer can chicken as we would like to try and add some pulled chicken in our boxes this year.

The thighs and legs go on the top rack at 250 and the beer can chicken went on the bottom rack.  I used a 50/50 mix of hickory and peach for this cook.

30 minutes on the rack, dunk in sauce, 30 minutes in a pan, then 30 more minutes on a rack with a sauce glaze...

Beer can chicken is looking nice and brown...

Finished product...

Nice color, good taste, and bite through skin on both the thighs and legs.  A very successful practice.

As for the pulled chicken, we mixed some dark meat in with the breast, then lightly sauced and tossed to mix it all up...

Nice taste and very moist.  We might just put this in a box this year.  We are not 100% there, but we are very close...

Thanks for stopping by...

Bill