Competition-Style Chicken Thighs

SMOKING RECIPE CLIFF NOTES:

- Trim bone-in, skin-in chicken thighs, removing as much fat as possible and making them all look similar

- Make a brine of water, apple juice, sprite, salt, pepper, brown sugar. Submerge thighs in it for 2 hours in fridge.

- Remove thighs from brine, rinse with cold water, and put the rub all over including underneath the skin

- Place each thigh on top of butter in a foil pan for butter bath, and place on the smoker at 275F

- After an hour, remove thighs from butter bath and place directly on smoker

- After another 30-60 minutes, when the internal meat temp hits 165/170F, pull from smoker

- Cover thighs in BBQ sauce and place back on smoker at 300F to caramelize

- After 15-30 minutes, remove from the smoker and serve

I'm now 3 years into my obsession with smoking meats/BBQ, and have yet to try out chicken thighs. Why, you may ask, would I avoid them? Especially considering they are a main part of competition BBQ? Well, I have no idea. But this past weekend, I decided that needed to come to an end.

I cook chicken on the grill regularly, and we all really enjoy it. Maybe because it's so easy to do that, I've always favored that approach. But after this weekend's attempt, I realize (duh!) just how much better they are when smoked.

I decided to approach this as I would a competition, which is why I titled this post "competition-style chicken thighs". There are some parts of this recipe that are a waste of time for backyard BBQ. But it always feels more fun to take it too seriously anyway. So, without further adieu...

I bought a pack of 10 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs from my local grocery store. Nothing special. I brought them home and although I wasn't going to cook them until the next day, I decided to clean and trim them in advance.

To do this, I peeled back the skins and trimmed away any excess fat. I also used a small knife and scraped away some fat on the underside of the skin. This supposedly helps make the skin thinner and easier to bite through - a key component of competition judging. It didn't work for me, but I'll get into that later. I also cut off any pieces of meat that were sticking out, in an effort to make all the pieces look as similar as possible. Once I finished, I put them all in a container and into the fridge for the next day's cook. Then I watched hours of the NCAA tournament, including a disappointing upset of my Fighting Irish. At least I had BBQ to look forward to!

The next day around 12:30pm I decided to get a brine ready to put my chicken in for a few hours prior to cooking. My brine recipe was really simple with approximate amounts: 1 cup of water, 1 cup of apple juice, 1 can of Sprite, 1/4 cup of kosher salt, 2tsps black pepper, 2tsps brown sugar. I used less salt than a typical brine may call for because my rub has salt in it and I'm constantly worried about over-salting poultry when I brine it. Anyway, mixed it all together, poured it all over the chicken, and placed back in the fridge.

About 2 hours later, around 2:30pm, I pulled the chicken from the brine and rinsed each piece off in cold water. I then put it back into the fridge.

Chicken thighs post brine

You can see I didn't do an A+ job with my skins staying wrapped around the chickens. The best competition cooks put a lot more effort into this, making sure the skin wraps all the way around, using toothpicks (or other materials) to keep it together throughout the entire cook, etc. I didn't want to spend that much time on it. And the thighs looked uniform enough for my liking.

I wanted to get the chicken on the smoker around 4pm, anticipating a 1.5-2hour cook. So around 3pm I got the smoker lit, utilizing a smaller than usual minion method with more lit coals to start. I also did not fill the water pan. I wanted the smoker to run hot, aiming for a 275-300F for cooking.

I then pulled the chicken thighs from the fridge and started rubbing them up. I used Plowboys Yardbird Rub, and made sure to get all over the thighs. This included peeling the skin back once again, and rubbing the meat underneath it, and then putting the skin back on top and rubbing on top of it. Once again, I wanted to make sure not to overdue the rub for fear of making it taste too salty.

Plowboys Yardbird Rub

Rubbed up chicken thighs

I decided to start the cook with the chicken in a butter bath. Many cooks use this approach to add some flavor (who doesn't like butter on their food?) but also it's supposed to help with the texture of the skin. I'm not sure I needed it for backyard BBQ, but I decided to go with it anyway. I used one stick of butter cut into 10 pieces to lay each thigh on top of, skin-side up, and then cut up another stick of butter to sit on top of the chicken. Paula Deen would be proud! I then put the pan on the smoker around 4pm at 275F, and added 4 hickory wood chunks (I would have preferred apple wood but didn't have any on hand).

Butter in the foil pan to place thighs on top

Rubbed up thighs in the foil pan with butter on top ready to go on smoker

Standard WSM shot!

After about an hour, around 5pm, the chicken was ready to leave the butter bath and go directly on the smoker. I should note, the butter bath came up about half-way on the chicken. I read that you do not want to have the thighs submerged in butter. Anyway, I pulled each thigh out of the bath and put directly on the smoker. I then drizzled a little honey on top of each thigh to add a little extra sweetness. Again, I kept the smoker temp around 275F.

Chicken thighs pulled from butter bath and placed directly on the smoker

At this point, I decided to heat up some BBQ sauce. I used Plowboys as well (coincidentally, I promise I wasn't being sponsored by them - though I'm open to it if they're reading this?), and I added some honey to it to make it a little sweeter. I cooked it on the stove with the hopes of thinning it out a bit. I read I could have added some Coke to it also, but I didn't have any and am not sure I really needed it. I let that sit on the side waiting for the chicken to be ready for it.

After about 30 minutes, I started checking the internal temperature of the thighs. My target was for 165-170F. At that point, they were all running a little cooler around 150F, so I left them on a bit longer. After another 15 minutes (5:45pm), I checked once again and had hit the target. So I pulled them off and brought them inside to sauce them.

I typically aim for little to no sauce on my BBQ, but I wanted to try making the sauce a bigger part of the chicken. So I dipped each thigh in the sauce pan, completely submerging them. It worked out great for taste, but in hindsight, it was over-sauced. I'll do it lighter next time, brushing sauce on like I do with my ribs. I added a small sprinkle of brown sugar on each piece as well to give them more sweetness, and I then put the sauced chicken back on the smoker at 300F to finish them and caramelize the sauce a bit. I left them on for about 20 minutes, and then pulled the finished product.

Chicken thighs hitting the 165-170F mark, ready to be sauced

Finished product - (over-sauced) chicken thighs

In the end, the taste of these thighs was really really good. I underestimated just how much value the smoke brings to the table (vs my standard grilling). There was a slight bite to the chicken, I guess because of the rub, and the sweetness I added was really great. The meat was also extremely juicy, which was thanks to a combo of the brine and being on top of the meat's internal temperature.

A lot of the preparation effort I put into this was to make it such that when someone bites into the thigh, they bite right through the skin. As opposed to pulling it all off. Also, it's in an effort to make the skin crispy. Well, save a few exceptions, my skin was definitely not crispy, and slid right off with the first bite. So that's something for me to work on for a competition. 

But fortunately, it has no bearing on people's enjoyment! This is a definite keeper and I won't wait as long until the next time I do chicken thighs on my smoker - definitely going into the regular rotation!

SMOKING RECIPE CLIFF NOTES:

- Trim bone-in, skin-in chicken thighs, removing as much fat as possible and making them all look similar

- Make a brine of water, apple juice, sprite, salt, pepper, brown sugar. Submerge thighs in it for 2 hours in fridge.

- Remove thighs from brine, rinse with cold water, and put the rub all over including underneath the skin

- Place each thigh on top of butter in a foil pan for butter bath, and place on the smoker at 275F

- After an hour, remove thighs from butter bath and place directly on smoker

- After another 30-60 minutes, when the internal meat temp hits 165/170F, pull from smoker

- Cover thighs in BBQ sauce and place back on smoker at 300F to caramelize

- After 15-30 minutes, remove from the smoker and serve