Smoking Chicken, does temp matter?

I see on this site several persons use the high temp mode for cooking chicken. Yesterday I made a beer can chicken that turned out great, kept temos in the 225 to 230 range for about 3 hours. Everything tasted awesome, but the skin was rubbery and not crisp.

Is this the only reason to cook chicken at high temp? So the skin crisps up?

Jim

Jim,
I always do chicken at high temps 300+ and higher. When I do beer can chickens, the skin is never rubbery. Give it a shot and see what you think. Either way you go, you will end up with a very juicy chicken.

Steve

I cook 300+ chix will take bout an hour, or a little more. Rub a lil oil on the skin, cook at the higher temps it will be crisp. You can cook at 250 no problem, but will not have crispy skin. For turkeys or something larger, you definetely want higher temps or it will be in the danger zone for too long.

Actually, it won't be. And as long as you hit safe internals before removing the bird you're good to go.

I'm a skin fanatic so I cook chicken >400, usually 450-500. Skin will crisp at lower temps than these but I see no reason to prolong the cook. Low/slow chicken has never worked for me because of the skin thing, but many don't eat the skin (shocking, I know!) and cook at lower temps.

What Kevin said - but I have recently found that a cook in the WSM at 300 deg without the waterpan will work well, provide crispy skin "safely" IOW without having to worry about flares as you would on a grill cook and still be able to collect all that good smoke from the fat and mop drippings. I think if you are going to move to higher temps than 300 going to a kettle or "classic" grilling in general is the way. Unless you are moving your WSM grate down to the fire ring.

On these 350 to 500°F cooks for chicken, who is cooking with the water pan (water or dry) in place and who cooks without the pan at all?

Do you move the chicken around---change grate levels?

Would it work with 4 grates loaded with chicken thighs or would it be too cumbersome to shuffle them around?

Rita

Side note first: Search can be so frustrating on the board. I spent forever looking for an old post--this one--which I thought might be helpful. (I don't think it will.) I searched 'chicken' combined with '20 min', or 'key lime' or 'sweet potato' or '400'--all combinations that appear in the post--and it did not appear in any results lists. Frustrating.

Mostly I cook chicken in a kettle. I don't often do parts, preferring whole chickens, and 500 is easy in the kettle and doesn't require much fuel.

I have done parts in the WSM without the pan and easily hit >400; and with the pan and hit 350+. I would not load in a ton of chicken without a waterpan. I think the dripping fat would be way over the top. Truth be told, I wouldn't load in 4 grates full of anything even with the pan. To me that's simply too much to deal with and I insist on very good airflow. I'd much rather do 2 or 3 successive cooks if doing lots of chicken (or lots of ribs, or more than 4 butts or 2 briskets). All that cramming and stacking and rotating I just can't fathom. How much can I do at once is not a question I ask myself.

I totally agree about the search function on the website. I've had the same problem using keywords that I know should find a hit but getting no or unsatisfactory results, even when using the advanced search function.

Thanks for the link, Kevin. I'll check it out after supper. Yes, I used 4 grates and 2 cooking sessions to do 35 pounds of chicken, mostly thighs. I was careful to have some space between the pieces but I'm sure that there wasn't enough. I put the smallest pieces on the top (#1) grate, graduating to the largest pieces on the bottom (#4) grate and removed the pieces and upper grates as they hit temp. I did not rotate any of the chicken pieces (obviously).

I never could get the WSM quite up to 300°F. Have always had a problem getting high temps, even with a light load of meat.

I have to say the chicken got raves (and a couple of hugs from complete strangers!) but I know that I can do better. Increasing the number of cooking sessions to 4, though, might add another day and I still have to make sides, smoke beans, then reheat and transport everything. I'm going to have to rethink my game plan....always trying for perfection.

I'm thinking less meat per cook = higher temps = shorter cooks. That might work.

I tried smoking whole chickens and then halves, and carving them post-cook. It was pretty time consuming and seemed like too much hassle. I might have to rethink that too.

Rita

I recently did about 22 pounds of chicken thighs for a catering job. I did both racks in the WSM and used both of my 22" kettles set up for indirect, with a smoky joe grate above the cooking grate in one of the kettles. It was very difficult to get in and rotate, and some got a little overdone while others were lagging and barely got done on time. I will not be doing it that way in the future.

Maybe with a few more jobs like that one I can convince the Secretary of Finance that we need a Rancher.

Maybe this wouldn't add up to the same timewise but if you think about the sorting you did, Rita, to stratify the chicken, build the stack, rotate (if rotating), cope(!), etc., the hassle factor, to me, is far more than that of successive cooks. Besides, I don't have to worry about much with a fairly light load in the cooker and can do other things--like sides and sauces--while each batch cooks. I'd probably do that much chicken (90-100 pieces?) in 5 or 6 successive cooks.

Some stray thoughts in no particular order:

I rarely cook chicken for large gigs. It's a PITA to me. Then again, people book me and I cook whatever I want pretty much; they don't generally have food items in mind and then call me. I don't work that way. There are times when it's happened though. For large gigs where I must do chicken I just do it inside (it's easy to brown a bunch of chicken in pans and then move the pieces to sheets for oven finishing--or just roast pieces from the get-go, like roulades), or I'll brown or grill then braise, or I'll do whole chickens as a secondary meat item, carve post cook, and serve. This works fine when cooking/serving on site.

For cooking here but serving there I'm more likely to grill to safe (160) then finish in a pan in a little sauce till done. (Part of that step can happen during reheating if needed.) This shortens the first part of the cook (if using dark meat) because you're only cooking till safe, not palatable. That happens later--and can happen much later if more convenient: just cool the pieces, fridge, deal with finishing/reheating whenever.

Cooking whole chickens then carving later is not worth bothering with unless you're planning to pull the meat off the bones for putting in something else--another way, though, to serve chicken to a crowd: in something.

Use plenty of lit fuel for high heat chicken and if doing a bunch make sure it's room temp going into the cooker. Prop your door open at the bottom, if needed, to feed in air and get your temps up. You should have no problem getting past 300.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by K Kruger:
I'm a skin fanatic so I cook chicken >400, usually 450-500. Skin will crisp at lower temps than these but I see no reason to prolong the cook. Low/slow chicken has never worked for me because of the skin thing, but many don't eat the skin (shocking, I know!) and cook at lower temps. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Same here. If it wasn't for the skin, I'd never make it.

I know. Spare me boneless, skinless chicken breast--please!!

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by K Kruger:
I know. Spare me boneless, skinless chicken breast--please!! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Ahmen Brother.

Kevin, your link to the high-heat chicken cook did make me rethink my approach. I'm going to have to go back to square one with my chicken plan. I've begun a High-Temp Chicken file and have copied that thread and parts of this one for reference and will add to it as I find relevant discussions.

I started cooking chicken (not the current quantity, tho) long before we started talking about high-heat cooks here in TVWB and never thought about changing my technique. So I'll be doing some research.

Someone is just going to HAVE to write a book or at least a complete article from start to finish with a 1-2-3-step approach to cooking high-heat chicken on the WSM. Including starting the fire and the MM. I have a gasser, but no kettle. There are so many different ideas out there. Meanwhile, I'll begin experimenting in a few weeks. Stay tuned for questions and results.

Jack will be flapping his wings in the kitchen when I get on the chicken tear....What? Chicken again??

Rita

This is in no way a complete article, but I love doing the high heat chicken and find it a super easy and short cook (even better!!).

I always start with a full lit chimney, pretty much no matter how much chicken I'm cooking. If I'm only using the top grate, I'll dump the full lit in the wsm, and maybe dump another 1/3 to 1/2 chimney on top and I leave the middle section off until all those coals are blazing. If I'm cooking on both grates, I'll go with 2 full chimneys worth of coals. I'd rather error on the side of too much fuel than too little, and I've had good luck with reusing fuel. I just let it all die out and scoop it into large size coffee cans and then use that on the next cook.

I get my chicken all setup and ready on the middle section and when all the coals are fully lit and blazing, just pick up the middle section and set it on the base. I use the stock water pan, foil lined, but empty.

I leave all vents 100% open the entire time. Within 5-10 minutes (or less sometimes) of setting that middle section on the base, I have 350 degrees at the top grate easy. It's even pushed over 400 a couple times. I don't care. I just let it do what it wants. 30-45 minutes later (depending on the size of the chicken pieces) I will check them and start my BBQ wipe down. I usually go with split chickens or split breasts. I like doing the whole chicken too, but I ususally just get the splits when they go on sale, again saving me prep time and making it a quicker / easier cook.

Split whole chickens, I won't even check them until 45 minutes. Split breasts I'll check 25-30 minutes in. I don't even watch the smoker temps. With that much full lit fuel and with leaving all vents 100% from the get-go, even after 45 minutes when I pull the lid off and check them, the cooker jumps right back to 350 within a couple minutes of replacing the lid.

I yank them at 160 internal, reconfig for grilling, and then finish up crisping up the skin and getting those nice BBQ black marks on the chicken by going direct over the coals for about 2 minutes per side. It doesn't take much. No lid, just set the top grate on the base.

Always been juicy.

Todd

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Is this the only reason to cook chicken at high temp? So the skin crisps up? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Jim, since chicken is not a tough meat, the low and slow method isn't needed to render the meat tender. With high temp cooks, you get both crispy skin and you're finished sooner. I did chicken thighs this weekend using a fresh oregano, basil, marjoram, and sage rub along with some s & p and finished with fresh lemon juice right before pulling. It came out fantastic. The skin was to die for.