Tough Chicken Skin

The flavor and tenderness of the underlying chicken is just fine, but the skin comes out something akin to shoe leather.

I have tried marinating to tenderize the meat--hoping the skin would be affected. I paste with yellow mustard and a little of Harley's rub, then cook around 220 degrees--never letting it get higher than 250, and, the results are still the same.

Any suggestions for what I might try?

Dale Groetsema

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Dale Groetsema
Big Daddy's BBQ, Fairbanks, AK & Vancouver, WA

Dale,

I think if you let your cooker temp get higher your skin will become crispier. I let my temp run all the way to 300-325. Also, I have found that the rub will NOT penetrate the skin....see below.

Even at 250, I find the heat is not quite high enough for great skin. Most of the time, though, I simply discard the skin. IF you plan on doing that..DO NOT put your rub on the skin! Lift it up and rub underneath the skin...it really is pretty easy and the skin will stay in place to provide moisture while cooking.

Hope this might be of some help!

Stogie

Dale
Cook poultry a higher heats and the problem will go away. Are you cooking on a WSM?
Since we starting do chicken on WSM rubbery skin is just not a problem.
Jim

Hi Dale,
I had the same problems with the chicken skin turning out real "JUNK!" Go to the start of the forum and hit the ADVANCE DISCUSSION, now go to the bottom and select page 2. Look for "Chicken Skin" under my post mattD. In it Chris and Jim gave me the answers which helped me a whole lot! Hope this helps, and incase I forgot "Thanks Chris & Jim!"
Mahalo, mattD