Rotisserie Crispy Skin


 

THyde

TVWBB Guru
Hi Everyone. I'm about to cook a rotisserie chicken today, and want to know what you guys do in order to get the skin super crispy. In the past, I have used the Roadside Chicken method which works good, but what ingredient in particular helps crisp the skin over the course of the rotisserie cook?

Lately, I have been brining the chickens about half an hour then putting some Adobo on the outside, truss and spin. The skin does not crisp up that well using this technique.

What can I put on this bird to crisp the skin up nice?

Thanks in advance!

Tim
 
Coating the outside with baking powder is supposed to help the skin crisp along with dry brining the night before and allowing the skin to dry before putting it on the grill as Larry mentioned.

The problem with rotisserie chicken is that you are fighting one of the normally beneficial aspects of rotisserie cooking. The nature of the rotisserie cook lends the bird to being continuously basted in it's own juices. Normally that is a very good thing, but it doesn't lend well to the skin getting crisp. Instead it stays soft. Cooking a chicken on the grates will allow you to cook it breast side up which allows the juices to flow down and away from the skin. What you could do is leave the bird on the spit breast side up and cook it without the roto running for the last half hour to hour and see if that works.
 
I do a lot of rotisserie chicken, and high-heat is critical. I use a two zone, three is too much (imho)
Unfortunately, I find that when I remove the chicken from the BBQ, the skin is crispy as wanted, however during carving, the skin gets wet in the carving process from all the moisture in the chicken, and by the time it's all said and done, it's no longer crispy. YMMV

f4DSR6M.jpg
 
OK, well it is too late to dry brine overnight, I will try a mishmash of the advice. Plan is to spin it as normal, mine usually take 1.5 to 2 hours. Then at the end I can stop the spin with the breasts up and try to dry the skin out.

I will pat it extra dry before I put it on too.

Thanks for the tips!

EDIT: This is on a Genesis 2000, so I will use the near and far burners and not the middle burner. Still a couple hours for input in case anything you guys see in my plan is el stupido lol
 
I do a lot of rotisserie chicken, and high-heat is critical. I use a two zone, three is too much (imho)
Unfortunately, I find that when I remove the chicken from the BBQ, the skin is crispy as wanted, however during carving, the skin gets wet in the carving process from all the moisture in the chicken, and by the time it's all said and done, it's no longer crispy. YMMV

f4DSR6M.jpg
I will take it just like that :coolkettle: !

Looks perfect to me (y) .
 
I do a lot of rotisserie chicken, and high-heat is critical. I use a two zone, three is too much (imho)
Unfortunately, I find that when I remove the chicken from the BBQ, the skin is crispy as wanted, however during carving, the skin gets wet in the carving process from all the moisture in the chicken, and by the time it's all said and done, it's no longer crispy. YMMV

f4DSR6M.jpg
Looks great. What do you define as high heat? If I go too high it seems like the outside gets too done before the inside meat is fully cooked.
 
Looks great. What do you define as high heat? If I go too high it seems like the outside gets too done before the inside meat is fully cooked.
400 is my preferred "high heat" cook. Typically my cook starts out at 400 but by the time it done (usually an hour for a 2LBS chicken) temp has fallen off to 350ish
 
As Bruce said - Crispy skin on rotisserie is a tough one. I also agree with Chuck that sometimes I can get cripsy skin it is soggy by the time I get to eat it. I am still working it out. On Wings I use cornstarch and may give that a go next time I play spin the bird as well as a little more direct heat.
 
I let the gasser get into the 400s and now it is coming down so I guess I'm simulating charcoal lol.

I'll wait till it's done then stop spinning it breasts up and let it go a little longer like that. I'm planning to take some pictures when it's done.
 
I let the gasser get into the 400s and now it is coming down so I guess I'm simulating charcoal lol.

I'll wait till it's done then stop spinning it breasts up and let it go a little longer like that. I'm planning to take some pictures when it's done.
We are going to require video and sound for the bite and crunch test;-)
 
We are going to require video and sound for the bite and crunch test;-)
Haha, Bruce I don't have the production levels you have, so please when you look at those pictures just supply one of your stock "people eating chicken" sound tracks :)

This was one of the best rotisserie chickens I have made in a long while. Instead of being worried I was too high temperature, I let er rip with the front and rear burners set around medium, but I was not concerned about too much heat. Then, and I use a Meater thermometer, when I got the five minute warning, I blasted all three burners on high. Bruce, I did try the non spin let it roast technique, but I wasn't getting any color on the skin. So I just spun it some more with the burners all three on full blast for about 10 minutes, and got rave reviews so I guess that's one way to crisp the skin. I can tell if it was on much longer it would have burned the skin though, so that's what I did and it came out great. The interior temperature of the meat only went one or three degrees over 165, never hit 170. So a quick seven or eight minutes right at the end, five minutes before it hit temp seemed to do the trick! Thanks for the advice, and now I'm going to stop thinking roto is slow cooking, it isn't really.
 
Thanks for that synopsis. I will try fast crispy cook on my next chicken. I just ate a Walmart Lemon Pepper roto bird tonight. Skin was tasty but certainly not crispy.
 
Bruce I won't be afraid to cook it closer to 400 the whole time next time. I mean look at Chuck's it is incredible! I got maybe 1/3 of the way there, and all during the cook the skin was not even turning brown at all. I had got scared when I hit 400 so I wussed out and dropped down all the way around 285, which is where for some reason I've been cooking these. They definitely need more heat as Chuck and Larry have both said, and they are both right. Then at the end if the skin isn't done enough I have just found that opening all the valves up for just a few extra minutes doesn't dry the whole bird out or anything, it just singes the skin.

Chuck, that is the gold standard right there. Very nice, and thanks again all for the tips everyone!
 

 

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