Chicken Thighs ?


 
J

James Harvey

TVWBB Pro
Can anyone tell me how to get a chicken thigh to the point where you can bite through skin and meat without fighting either? I can do the meat but never the skin. I've grilled and I've smoked. Grilling has been best for skin, smoking for meat.

Ideas?
 
At some point in the cook, give them a few minutes direct heat with skin down and watch them. That'll crisp up the skin
 
I smoke thighs all the time. 275-300 degrees seems to get the skin crisp...but can be hard to achieve if you have the smoker crammed full. I would suggest using a full lit chimney of lump charcoal with some more unlit charcoal beneath it for the start. IT will still take awhile to get up to 275-300, but it should be in that range for the last 30 minutes or so of the cook which should be enough to get the crisp skin. The meat should be tender as well (especially if you use a good marinade).
 
How many people are removing and scraping the skin? Also how many are doing boneless thighs vs. bone in?
 
I don't do thighs, but prefer to buy small leg quarters. They're cheaper, and I can fit more chicken on the cooker at once if I just do lefties or righties on the same grate. I lay the legs around the grate like spokes on a wheel (about nine to a rack) with all the drumstick ends touching at the middle and thighs to the outside over the higher heat, using up to three grates.

Of course with that much chicken, I don't remove or scrape the skin, but I'm not cooking for a competition, either. However, I do remove all the big gobs of fat that come off easily, and also put a couple pads of butter under the skin, on top of the thigh. I'm finding that I get better skin color with melted butter brushed on, rather than spraying with Canola oil. I cook around 250* or so with water in the pan, getting just as close to "bite through" skin as I did when I just foiled the pan, and cooked up around 300. I'm air-drying in the fridge, as well, but I'm not sure that's critical. I think the removing as much fat as reasonable and adding some butter (or Parkay) to help saute' the skin is what's most important in getting the skin tender. I notice that most all the fat that you leave under the skin is still there at the end of a smoke, so removing as much as you can does make good sense if tenderness is what you're after.
 
Best of luck to those who remove the skin and scrape the fat. I'm not bothering with that. I do bone-in thighs. Boneless have their place in certain dishes, but for just chicken, I like bone in. I do mine on my kettle and not low/slow. IMO, you have to give the thighs some direct time to crisp up the skin and melt the fat. I'm not into bite through. To me, if the skin isn't crisp, the chicken isn't worth eating. Now that's just my opinion of course. Thighs are too easy to have to mess around. Remove excess skin and fat, apply some oil to both sides, season both sides and put them on the grill. A few minutes direct for each side to brown a bit, then move to indirect.
 
Originally posted by Dave/G:
Best of luck to those who remove the skin and scrape the fat. I'm not bothering with that. I do bone-in thighs. Boneless have their place in certain dishes, but for just chicken, I like bone in. I do mine on my kettle and not low/slow. IMO, you have to give the thighs some direct time to crisp up the skin and melt the fat. I'm not into bite through. To me, if the skin isn't crisp, the chicken isn't worth eating. Now that's just my opinion of course. Thighs are too easy to have to mess around. I apply some oil to both sides, season both sides and put them on the grill. A few minutes direct for each side to brown a bit, then move to indirect.
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Dave, that's a GREAT way to do a few thighs on a kettle, but I'm always cooking a little more chicken at a time than what will fit on just one kettle rack, in order to finish indirectly.

Three racks on my 18.5" will hold around TWO DOZEN WHOLE LEG QUARTERS, and no, the skin doesn't end up "rubbery" or unappetizing at all. Maybe it's a southern thing, but smoked leg quarters are pretty popular down here, and Sassafrass is the best wood to use IMHO. The wsm is the perfect cooker for this technique as well.
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Try the NOE-way in the wsm. Take out the water pan and cook around 300. That will give you great skin/smoked chicken.
 
Originally posted by Wolgast:
Try the NOE-way in the wsm. Take out the water pan and cook around 300. That will give you great skin/smoked chicken.
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Yeah, that's UDS-style, but I'd only cook with the top rack.

Also, you need to be a LOT more careful when setting the sauce at the end of the cook. With NO PAN, the charcoal will typically get REALLY hot when you start taking the lid off to check for doneness or glaze. Maybe you want that to happen to "crisp up" the skin, but be extra careful when trying to set sugar laden sauces.
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