Last night I attempted to smoke a dozen chicken quarters. The plan was to cook these at 275o . My only smoker is a MasterBuilt electric. The problem that I ran into was that my desired cook temp was also the highest temp that this smoker goes to. I let it reach the max temp before I opened the door to put my chicken in. By the time I had the chicken in and closed the door, the temp inside the smoker had fallen to 180o. It took an hour for this thing to get back up to my desired cooking temperature. The process happened all over again when I sauced the chicken. While the chicken that came out was edible, I would not describe it as anything near great. Would these temperature swings account for chicken that came out a little rubbery?
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It seems the consensus around these parts it hot and fast. You want to achieve cooker temps at 325+. -
I cook chicken at ~350, for me it works well, do you have any other cookers? Maybe some smoke and finish in the oven?Comment
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I do chicken at 325-350. Get better crispy skin that way. You can always finish them in the oven (your smoke will stay in the chicken) or deep fry them just to crisp them up.Comment
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I did a mess of chicken last night in the WSCG with a dome temp of 425. Grilled indirect and had great skin. The WSCG has quite a bit of real estate to move the parts around and I probably wouldn't go that high in W22 (in which I run chicken parts at 375).Comment
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It's all about high heat and applying it indirectly when cooking chicken. There are several ways to grill or smoke that if you do a search on the chicken channel you will find them. My favorite way recently is with a Weber kettle and a small little device called the Vortex. It channels up to 500* of heat into the kettle dome which radiates down onto the chicken. The addition of a couple hunks of wood can provide good smokiness and the skin comes out incredibly crisp.
I don't think your smoker is suitable for that type of cook. You might want to look into a kettle with either an SNS or a Vortex add on to get chicken done in such a manner (along with a variety of meats at various temps). Kettles are going for as little as $90 and the Vortex about $38 on Amazon. Well worth looking into if you have a tight budget.
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I have a Masterbuilt ES and here's what I know about cooking chicken in it. You can do a Myxon style cupcake chicken in it. Google will turn up the recipe and technique. Decent flavor and tender skin. My other favorite way to use it with chicken is to spatchcock the chicken and put some broth in the bottom of the pan. The more chickens you have the longer it takes for it to come back up to temp. And with spatchcock the skin will be inedible and it's more of a "smoked chicken" to pull for sandwiches or salad. I'm afraid if you want crispy smoked chicken you'll do that in your next smoker. But out of all things I smoke the spatchcock chicken is my wife's favorite.
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In your current situation I’d get smoke on them for an hour or so until the internal temp is 160 or so then deep fry to fix the skin issue.
You could also try finishing them them in a preheated 500-550F oven indoors but make sure you have ventilation.Comment
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If you have room, get an inexpensive Weber kettle. They do duty as a smoker, but will get hotter than your dedicated unit.Comment
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TechSmoker it sure sounds like your electric smoker is good for "low and slow" but you now know that is not what chicken needs. Your plan of smoking for a bit to get some flavor, then moving to the oven (or a grill) sounds best. If you have a grill I would just use that. I don't smoke chicken much anymore myself, but just direct grill, or 2 zone grill but at high heat (350-ish).Comment
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I should have known better. I was going off from a recipe from here:
I have definitely learned from this experience. -
TechSmoker something else to be aware of is that "championship" chicken for a competition turn in box may not be what family and friends will like best coming off your backyward BBQ. They put a lot of emphasis in those recipes on "bite through" skin, whereas most people prefer the skin a little crispier. On your smoker, I would just start with the sauce, and never open the door again.
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I bought one of those about 5 years ago, tried several cooks on it hated the thing sold it for half what i paid for it.Comment
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