I did 12 lbs of Costco chicken thighs last weekend. Salt & pepper and let sit for maybe an hour while I got the WSM set up. I wouldn't recommend brining for thighs. They've got enough fat they're almost impossible to overcook. I put the thighs on skin side down and used two chunks each of cherry and oak. My temps stayed between 225 and 250 the whole time. I didn't keep a log but I want to say it took about three hours total. I shot for 165F internal. Most of the thighs were done after 2-1/2 hours, but the ones that started in the middle of the lower rack took another half hour or so after I pulled off the rest. I filled the charcoal ring about halfway, probably a bit less due to the wood chunks being in there. There were just a few scattered coals left when the chicken came off. I used water straight from the hose in the water pan so I probably lost a lot of fuel to heating the water.
I was going for pulled chicken, which required them to cool down a bit, so I just let them rest on the plate. I was sort of following a recipe I got from Cook's Illustrated. They said when pulling the meat off the bone, try to pull large chunks and put the smaller bits in a separate pile. The skin should be removed and discarded. (It looked good, but it was rather soft and flabby. Not very tasty.) When you're done pulling you want about equal piles of big chunks and smaller pieces. The smaller pieces you chop or put in the food processor and pulse until it's well shredded into small bits. The shredded chicken gets added to the pot of sauce. (Apple cider, ketchup, brown mustard, molasses, apple cider vinegar, a pinch of cayenne.) Then you break the big chunks into the size pieces you'd want for sandwiches. That goes in the pot too. The basic idea here is to be sure the chicken is well coated with the sauce. The shredded bits act as kind of a binder and allow much more sauce to stay with the chicken. The result was very tasty. Even better the next day.
The next time I make this I'll make the sauce the day before or at least early in the morning so the flavors have a chance to fully meld. On the first day the ketchup and mustard were quite noticeable. By the second day it tasted more like a coherent whole than a bunch of stuff tossed together. On the second day the smoke from the chicken had also permeated the sauce and was much more noticeable than on the first day. We got quite a few good meals out of $14 of chicken and a couple dollars worth of charcoal. I will definitely be making this again.
