Chicken legs - skin on or skin off is the question ??

hotwheels

Did a search and looks like a lot of you are leaving the skin on. I've been taking the skin off so I could put some rub on them. Also going indirect, hanging on a rack, at 350-400. They've been good, but perhaps I could improve. With skin on, raised drip pan do I have to worry about burning the skin?  I'm assuming skin on works for you guys, plus I imagine the legs are more moist. 

(Tommorrow I only have 1.5 hours to light the lump and put food on the table, so I thought chicken legs are reasonably quick cook.)  

Spaightlabs

I cooked a bunch skin on last night. Very moist, no burnt skin.

Doc_Eggerton

Skin on, marinated in Allegro Hot & Spicy overnight.

In terms of timing, takes about 35 minutes once on the fire.

hotwheels

Ok. If you guys say it works, I'll try it tomorrow.

Thanks 

rholt

I usually take the skin off. A little healthier and I was tired of rubbery skin no matter what I tried. I haven't been disappointed with the flavor or moisture without the skin. Happy egging.

Mickey

Skin on. 400 direct laying on the grill.

nolaegghead

brine with some spice, like a 5-10% brine depending on how fast you want it done.  Rinse, then let the skin dry out in the fridge for a day.  takes some work, but fixes all your problems

Shiff

I leave the skin on, but peel it back first and apply some rub, then pull the skin back in place.  I don't always get crispy skin but we don't eat much of the skin anyway.  I use a chicken leg hanging rack and they come out great. 

Ragtop99

I go for skin off if cooking indirect or if using a rub/marinade. Sometimes I'll leave it on if I'm doing it direct.

flynnbob

Doc_Eggerton said:

Skin on, marinated in Allegro Hot & Spicy overnight.

In terms of timing, takes about 35 minutes once on the fire.

Listen to Doc - He is right and get a Leg and wing rack.

hotwheels

The meal was postponed due to weather. However tomorrow I'm going conduct a very 'scientific experiment'.  ;-)  I'm going to try out a few of the different techniques mentioned here: Skin off as a baseline with dry rub;  Skin on with rub over skin; Skin on with rub under skin; Skin on marinated in sauce; Skin off with marinade and even an injected leg. I'll go indirect at 400,  leg rack and drip tray. I've never done brine before and I think I'll wait until I do a whole chicken before I go there.  Unfortunately, as much as I feel that an important scientific experiment like this requires a blind taste test, I may have some problem convincing my wife to eat the meal blindfolded.   <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />  

hotwheels

My thanks for all the suggestions and help.  I finally had the chance to cook a bunch of chicken legs a few different ways. We definitely found that leaving the chicken skin on was more moist. (No brainer I guess.)  Probably the best was simply BBQ sauce or Tariyaki sauce with skin on. Surprisingly I found I was able to easily put rub under the skin by pulling the skin back towards the knuckle, applying rub and just stretching the skin over the leg again.

Once the legs were cooked we took off the chicken skin just for health reasons. Our opinion was that cooking with the skin on make the legs really tastey. I did try injection on a couple legs but I don't think there was enough meat to hold the sauce injected.

 

Sorry no pics. By the time I thought of pictures there were only two left.