As I'm beginning to understand(from conversations with Fxdoc, among others), the PBC is a pretty high humidity environment. It's been my experience, that to crisp chicken skin(or any fowl really), you will need to seriously crank up the heat to at least 400 for the crisping stage. The higher the better is the order of the day here. We have this happen at the restaurant when cooking a full oven load of fowl, from time to time. We just crank up the heat, watch the fowl, and as the skin browns, gradually reduce the heat a bit. Once you start getting the browning you desire, then the humidity has been mitigated enough to allow the malliard reaction.
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And from my experience, added wood chunks will mess with skin crispiness no matter how high the cooking temp is.
Skip adding wood, let the natural smokiness from the coals do the magic.Comment
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Better in spots, but still not there. Cooked at around 430 for an hour. Put it on the grate at 150, but it came to temp very quickly after that, so not much help there. No smoke flavor with such a short cook. Plenty juicy. A decent roast chicken. That's all.Comment
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I always smoke mine. I notice smoke having zero effect on skin crispness, but I don't run a PBC.Comment
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We've got to get to the bottom of this.Comment
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It's killing me brother. So far, on this machine everyone swears by, I've made some ok chicken, a lesser butt, and some barkless ribs. And I used to be known as a pretty decent cook.Comment
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How did you cook the butt? Some of the best pork but I've ever made came off a PBC using Meathead's pork shoulder recipe (standard no wrap method). EXCEPT, I just let the PBC run at its normal temps. In other words, I followed the recipe except for the 225*F temp that is recommended. On most cookers 225*F is key, but on the PBC things just work different.
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Is your thermometer accurate?Comment
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Ernest: I believe so. The themapen pretty much jibes with the probe in the meat, anyway (I've got a Maverick 732).
Pit Boss: The butt was my fault. In fact, I misspoke/typed. It was a shoulder not a butt. I tied, but let's face it, there are different pieces of muscle coming together on this thing, and, even tied, some cook faster than others.
But my main issue was over-salting. I dry brined it, ala Momofuko shoulder (equal parts salt and sugar, wrapped overnight. Finish with brown sugar. Heat high to glaze. I did my previous butt this way, and it was one of my favorites (I skipped my usual bun and coleslaw and put it on rice with ginger scallion dressing). Anyway, I got skittish when I put the meat on, as the ribs I'd recently done didn't have much bark at all. So I stupidly put a little rub I had lying around on it right before it went on. It went ten or eleven hours unwrapped with a few chunks of applewood. The interior was moist (if a little salty), but the bark was actually a little too chewy in spots. Anyway, it was a dumb mistake that's easy not to duplicate.
The odd thing was this: there was a smoke ring, but not much smoke flavor to speak of.Comment
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Smoke ring = flavor = myth. Just a chemical reaction that can be achieved with cure. Sure looks pretty, but doesn't equate to any flavor other than the flavor of the rest of the meat/rub.Originally posted by Jordan Mott View Post
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Ok. Still, all day over the coals and several chunks of wood. You'd think I should taste some of that.Comment
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Maybe it's the birds?
Last night's skin was typically (for me) sub-par. And I ran hot. 440 for around thirty minutes. 370 for 15. Then it was done. In fact, I threw caution to the wind and took the breast up to 170 in order to get the skin right. I'd injected, so it didn't suffer for that. I also dry-brined for two days (salt and baking powder), the last 11 hours unwrapped. The skin was also oiled and rubbed. And it wasn't even close to crisp.
Now the thing that's got me thinking is that I finally paid attention to the sticker on the wrapper (beyond the weight), and this chicken was a fryer (read: old bird). Could it be, if my wife's been bringing these monsters home the whole time, she's been damning my efforts from the get-go? Because there was a pretty thick layer of fat clinging to the skin of this dog. And I've poked holes before, but still haven't gotten it all to render. So maybe a younger bird will help? I can't afford a new wife.
Also, does anyone else experience a freakishly fast initial climb in temperature? In the fridge, the breast read about 34 degrees. By the time I get it out, split, oiled, rubbed, and hung in the PBC, the Readicheck always reads 50. I don't take two hours to do this, so I don't know why it should start there. Then it climbs to 90 inside of 5 minutes. So far, I'm guessing awkward/bad probe placement. I go in from the top of the hanging breast. I've always figured too much probe is left out of the top, or the point is too close to the surface at a thin part of the breast. That's why I always verify with a Thermapen when it gets close to done. Any takers on this situation?
Finally, I spoke to Noah last weekend. He tried to be very helpful, and told me to call him on my next cook. But he's been out of town making videos this week, so I didn't want to bother him. Anyway, he doubles down on his method of putting the lit coals from the chimney into the PBC and immediately hanging the meat. When I do this, my peak temps are in the 270 to 290 range, and then they dive and settle between 225 and 255. Ok for ribs, not so much for crisp chicken skin.
I don't know why this has become my personal Everest, as my family had always been happy with the skinless rotisserie chickens I used to do on the kettle. It could be that all the pictures of bird nirvana here have ruined me for life.
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I'm guessing probe placement to the temp spike issue. Do you place your finger on the probe to guage insertion depth, then only insert that far? Not against the breastbone, not too far to the other side? My guess is you're too deep and perhaps toward the surface meat on the other side. I eyeball it against the outside of the breats, put my figner on it, and place it in the center-most place i can. Then when it says 160-165, I use my ThermoPop to spot check clsoe to the bone and a couple other spots. It takes 20 seconds to double check.
I would think if you hit 440 and 370 you're are PLENTY hot for crisp skin. I couldn't do it at 325, so i started going 360-390 and it worked like a charm. Try a tad bit of baking soda (1/8tsp /lb) on the skin next time. Pat dry the skin w/ paper towels when prepping it, and again before puttign on the smoker. If you dry brine, leave it in your fridge uncovered to let the skin dry more. If you wet brine, don't. Dry brine instead. Low temps are not the best for chicken even skinless in my experiences.
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Well, Ernest did create a Crispy Chicken Skin Holy Grail for us with his Fast 'n Hot PBC Chicken Cooks, I must say. He's got us all scrambling for it.
I smoked a turkey breast and a 5.5 lb roaster chicken on my PBC last week. For the first time, I did not oil the rub that I put on the meat under the skin. I put dry rub there and the rub/baking powder mixture on the skin. Then it sat in the fridge, uncovered, for about 30 hours.
Before putting in the PBC, the birds were oiled over/under the skin.
The chicken skin was crispy everywhere except on the breast up by the wings, at the top of the bird (as it hangs in the PBC). It wasn't super crispy, but it had a pleasant bite, not rubbery at all. Ditto for the turkey. I ran about 320 deg F PB temp for the cook which took just over an hour for the chicken and about 1.5 hours for the turkey to get to 160 breast temp for both.
I used my Great Grate, with the turkey lying on the grate and the chicken hanging through the opening.
The skin showed definite improvement by not mixing the rub that goes under the skin with oil 30 hours before the cook, rubbing with oil just before cooking instead.
I'm thinking of getting a flamethrower to crisp up the skin. OK, maybe not. But a butane torch's flame footprint is too small for my patience as my family's stomach-growls get louder at the end of a cook.
Kathryn
Last edited by fzxdoc; February 27, 2015, 06:52 PM.Comment
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Actually, the new wife probably wouldn't be too expensive, but it's the ex-wife you won't be able to afford!Originally posted by Jordan Mott View Post
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I wet brine my chicken thighs... It is my favorite chicken dish I do on my BGE. I keep the marinade in my fridge all of the time. I marinade them over night and take them out of the fridge an hour before I put them on the grill. I reverse sear them by leaving the lid down for the first part of the cook with the temp at about 350. Then I finish the cook with the lid up and the bottom vent a little more open to crisp the skins and to carmalize the marinade a little. I baste them with more marinade a few times during the cook. I cook them to 195 degrees so the meat is close to fall off the bone. The recipe is attached to the picture. It's a lot of ingredients but Oh my... It's BY FAR the best marinade for chicken and pork chops I've ever found. It's was published by Chef John on AllRecipes.com. https://www.flickr.com/photos/food_pictures/9197218508/Last edited by Breadhead; February 27, 2015, 11:39 PM.Comment
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