Semi-Pro: BBQ Chicken Pt. 1

Chicken has to be one of the most versatile pieces of meat around. You can bake it. Broil it. Fry it. Boil it (though, yuck!). Trim it into pieces 9 ways to Sunday. Season it with every spice known to man. One of my favorite things to put on the grill is chicken. A good piece of BBQ chicken can change your life. Well, maybe not that serious, but it sure is a wonderful thing. Cooking that good piece of BBQ chicken, though, requires a little bit of effort. You could easily turn out chicken that is undercooked, burned, dried out, or just plain bland. But with a few simple techniques and a bit of patience, that's not going to happen. This post is focusing on bone-in, skin on chicken. Some of the techniques are the same whether you have bone in or boneless, but there are a few differences with the actual cook for boneless that I won't spend too much time on. Shall we begin?

Note: For the cooking professionals, there is a difference between 'BBQ' and 'grilling'. BBQ is usually low temperature (225-250, possibly 275 depending on who you ask), indirect heat, with lots of wood smoke. Grilling is usually at temps 300-375, and can either be indirect heat or direct heat. Technically this post would be grilled chicken, but many people use the terms interchangeably, so that's what I'm going to do here. Any problems, contact my manager

- First things first. Get yourself some chicken. Doesn't matter if it's drums, wings, thighs or breasts. Preferably the chicken is at least refrigerated (fresh is good, but not necessary) but not frozen. Personally I prefer thighs, but whatever floats your boat.

This pack came from Sam's Club. Perdue usually has quality chicken

The one thing I don't like about thighs, though, is how they are cut before they are packaged. Often there's a lot of extra skin and fat that may be still attached to the thigh, or pieces of cartilage from the joint when the bird was cut apart. Now, you could just give the pieces a quick rinse and call it a day, but I like to trim the thigh into something a little more presentable. I set up my work area with my cutting board, the pack of chicken, and a container to put the trimmed pieces in once they are done.

Next comes the messy part. Each piece of chicken is laid on the cutting board and inspected. I lay the skin side down and try and spread the skin out so I can see exactly how much needs to be cleaned up.

With a sharp knife, I cut off any really big pockets of fat and square up the skin so that it looks a little cleaner. Any bone or cartilage fragments are also removed. Once finished, the thigh looks like this:

The thigh then moves to the container and is repeated for every piece until the pack is done. There's going to be a nice size pile of nastiness that can be tossed. It's a little time consuming, but it's worth it

On the competition BBQ circuit,the preparation is even more extreme. The thighs are usually trimmed so that the piece is as close to symmetrical as they can get it. It cuts away good portions of meat, but it makes the presentation to the judges better. The skin is then peeled back from the thigh, sometimes totally removed, and scrapped with a sharp knife to remove all of the fat on the underside of the skin, then wrapped back around the trimmed pieces before they are cooked. This is quite time consuming and extremely messy, but it does help achieve the 'bite through' skin the judges are looking for. Since this isn't a competition cook, I wouldn't bother with this step.

Of the parts of the chicken, the thigh is probably the most time consuming to clean up. If you rather not have that much work in store, cook some wings. Most of the time all that would be needed for those is to trim some of the extra skin around the drum part of the wing.

Cover the chicken and place it aside for the moment in the fridge or cooler. Now it's time for probably the most important part of the chicken prep: BRINE YOUR CHICKEN. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not skip this step. Why is it so important? Brining your chicken does 2 things. First, it adds moisture to the chicken. That way, the meat will not dry out during the course of the cook. Dry chicken breasts are now a thing of the past. Second, a brine can add flavor to your chicken, be it spicy, savory, slightly sweet, or anywhere in between. 'Well, why not do a marinade instead?', you may ask. Yes, a marinade is a quick way to add flavor to your meat. However, while a marinade uses acid (vinegar, wine, citrus juice, etc) to break down some of the proteins in the meat, it does very little to add moisture to the food. Also, a marinade penetrates just the  top part of the meat, while the flavor a brine can introduce will penetrate all the way to the bone. A marinade can also start to break the meat down and make it mushy if the meat is left in too long. The biggest downside to using a brine is time: the chicken needs to soak for a few hours to be effective. The benefits just can't be beat, so the extra time is worth it, in my opinion. If i don't have time to brine my chicken, I won't grill chicken. Once you tried it yourself, you may share my sentiment.

So, what is a brine anyway? At it's most basic, it's a mixture of water and salt. Sugar is also found in your most basic brine mixtures. Why does brining work? The ratio of salt in the brine mixture is greater than the ratio of salt in the meat. Through osmosis, the meat will absorb the brine until the ratio of salt and water is equal inside and outside the meat (who said you'd never use grade school science in the real world?) A good ratio to start with is 1 tablespoon each of kosher salt and sugar to 2 cups of water. Even if you left the brine with this basic mixture, you will greatly improve the juiciness of your chicken. But why stop there? You now have the opportunity to add further herbs and spices to your brine, which will carry into the chicken. Go for some peppercorn, paprika, garlic, poultry seasoning, honey, chili powder, etc. Let your tastebuds be your guide. You can also find premixed brine seasonings like THIS, which I have tried and have had great success with. One of my personal favorites is a spicy apple chai brine, which has been my go-to brine for the last few years. Leave a comment or e-mail me and I may send the recipe to you to try. Depending on your ingredients, you may need to bring the brine to a boil in order for everything to dissolve. If so, let it cool before you add it to the chicken. You don't want to cook the chicken just yet! You can also make the brine before time and sit it in a container in the refrigerator until you need it. Just be sure to have the container marked, lest someone grabs a glass of salty spicy brine instead of apple juice (like my father in law once did!)

I wouldn't recommend drinking this. Leave that for the chicken.

With the brine done it's time to soak the chicken. One of the easiest ways to do this is by placing the chicken pieces in a gallon (or larger) sized freezer bag, then pour the brine over the chicken, making sure all the parts are submerged. Squeeze the bag slightly as you close it to push as much of the air out as you can, then pop the whole thing the the refrigerator for at least 2 hours (I prefer at least 4, or even overnight if I have the time). If freezer bags aren't handy, you can also add the chicken to a large bowl, pour the brine over the chicken, cover the bowl with plastic wrap then place in the refrigerator.

Let the chicken soak in the brine for at least 2 hours, longer if you have the time. Next step? The actual cook. Stay tuned...