Chicken and the "bite through skin"

FatMike

I have been trying to get better bite through skin on my chicken using an indirect set up. Doing another comp in a couple of weeks and have only have 1 LBGE for all four categories again. This is my latest adventure. Cranked the temp to 300 degrees. Chicken sprayed with grilling Pam and rubbed. I check temp with the trusty Thermopen till 155 and started to sauce with some home made bbq sauce mixed with equal parts of honey. Actually tuned out well this time and decent bite through. My wife was pissed that I wasted her lettuce..LOL

Hoss

After that last "Coup de Gras"I'd say you got SOMETHING RITE!!! Bird looks tastee! Good Luck!

AZRP

If you have time to practice some more, do the thighs indirect at 350-400 for 1-1.5 hours until 195 internal. The skin will be not only bite through but crispy and the meat will be juicy. -RP

FatMike

Thanks AZRP I will try that. Good to know that at 195 still juicy. I was hesitant going too high and pulled at about 165. Thanks again

elzbth

Looks perfect to me!!!

AZRP

With dark meat, the higher temps break down the collagen and make a much moister product and you get the crispy skin. -RP

mad max beyond eggdome

mike,

doing what randy said will help too....as for appearance. .. as a KCBS judge, i can tell you you will lose some appearance points for the uneven color on those thighs... do a neater job "painting" them ... see those 'white' spots on the thighs? . .. you need to touch them up with some sauce right at the end so that you have even color all over.. ..couple of tools you want in your arsenal are tweezers (for picking off any bits of charcoal like on that thigh at 9 o'clock) and small fine tipped paint brushes for final touch up of your thighs. ..

that bite through does look terrific though ...one of the hardest single things to achieve in competition!!! nice job!

[Deleted User]

FWIW- I find that legs and thighs cooked to less than 180 have a more rubbery texture and do not taste as good.

Randy's advice will get you more tender, better tasting chicken!

Carolina Q

Mike, I think it looks great! I'm so glad to see they don't look like Myron's ridiculous cupcakes! :laugh:

Paint brushes, Max? Tweezers? Seriously?! It has gone too far. Not doubting you at all; I just think that that's a bit over the top. Then again, I never understood why comp food has to be presented on a bed of lettuce either, but that seems to be expected. I always thought there was something incongruous about discussing "presentation" when you are required to serve it up in a styrofoam tray.

Good luck in the comp, Mike!!

Nature Boy

I am with you and Randy on this one. 180 would be the absolute lowest I'd go. Cheers!
Chris

2Fategghead

Way to go Mike. Keep up the good work.

BTW I'm not talking comp but, I do take my dark meat to 200 degrees. That usually gives me crispy skin and very tasty meat. :P

fishlessman

chicken looks good, im not a judge but if i were it would loose appearance points because its touching the lettuce :laugh: :laugh: while i dont mind the taste of lettuce, it makes me feel terrible after eating it, i avoid it like the plague. good thing im not a comp judge :laugh:

mad max beyond eggdome

michael,

we were third in bel air over all...missed out on reserve grand champs, and $1,600 BIG ONES by two one thousands of a point!!!! misssed out on grand champion and $3,000 by 1.5 points....yeah, paint brushes and tweezers can make or break you on major dollars at a competition....ITS THAT CLOSE!!

you don't have to present on lettuce if you don't want to, or parsley for that matter ...some teams don't use it at all. . .its rare that garnish really helps you, but crappy looking garnish will sure as hell hurt your appearance scores, and while the judges are not supposed to score you on your garnish, i can promise you that most of them will mark down your overall appearance scores for things like raggedy lettuce, or smeared sauce on your lettuce, etc ...

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

i never got 'it' either. i always thought myron';s chicken looked least like chicken. it's like the original idea of the competition has gotten lost and has devolved into a checklist of unnatural 'perfection'.

i can honestly say that as a guy who spends 99% of his professional life deciding how things should look, that perfect even color across the whole thing (as one example) would be less attractive to me than something more natural.

but i don';t compete, and my opinion is just one man's....

i think we have a bizarre, perverted idea (in the US) of what "perfection" is. don't get me started on vinyl siding and those plastic teeth the kids wear in "little miss perfect" pageants. :laugh:

mad max beyond eggdome

this from the guy that went balistic because one panel on his garage door was a 'you know what' hair wider at one end than the other!! :woohoo:

all you have to know about myron, beyond his made for TV bombasticness, is all the money he's won over the years....

Fidel

frog hair?


must be a southern thing....finer than frog hair

FatMike

Thank you all for the tips and gonna give it another shot this weekend..Never though of tweezers and paint brushes...You all ROCK

Thanks Again
FatMike

2Fategghead

and don't use your wife's tweezers either! :woohoo:

WooDoggies

It's an interesting thing about bite-through skin.... it's not in the rules that the skin be bite-through but that's what the teams think the judges want and the judges think the teams should achieve for bbq chicken at a bbq contest. lol .... but don't get me started.

Max, I agree with you ... everything you suggested will help Mike with his appearance scores.



john

WooDoggies

Looks like delicious chicken, Mike. Garnish is a pain but it does make the meat look better... the green contrasts beautifully with the red hues of bbq.

If your contest is KCBS, remember 6 seperate identifiable pieces to a box. I only count 5. :~) Good Luck!



john

Fellow Traveler

Question for all. My family only likes white meat except for me. If I was doing thighs and bone in breasts would there be a problem cooking them all at 350 to 400 for 1.5 to 2 hours? I am expecting to get my first egg within the next week and just bought a whole mess of chicken parts. I also need to get a thermapen I guess.

2Fategghead

Fellow Traveler,

Others may cook their chicken different. I cook my chicken to internal meat temperature.

No problem cooking chicken direct or indirect 350 to 400 degrees and it may take 1.5 to 2 hours but, when my white meat gets to 165 to 175 degrees internal meat temp I may pull them off. When my dark meat gets to 180 to 200 degrees internal meat temp I pull them off. Now when I do a spatchcock chicken I will pull the chick off when the dark meat is cooked to temp. I know I may over cook the white meat some but, that's how I like my chicken.

I did not have a thermapen at first but, I do now and I use it all the time. Tim

BMW BBQ M5

I am also a KCBS judge, albeit a newer one. Taste is the number one factor for me, but you have to grade appearance first, so it can make or break you despite the taste of your chicken. Bite through skin might sound picky, but having the entire skin slide off and flop on your chin kinda ruins the experience. Just my .02 cents worth.

AZRP

Thighs, legs, and wings like to be 195-200, breasts need to be pulled at 160. -RP

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

i spent 20 years in architecture, so i tend to pick up on major errors in a high-end garage door. one panel is 8 inches and the next one 10 inches, when all are sposeda be equal. can't help it if you can't spot that. you spotted that speck of charcoal on a chicken thigh, though. guess we have different priorities.

i never said myron wasn't making money. i could make money giving HJs behind a dumpster. but it wouldn't make it right. hahaha

his chicken balls may have been equally colored and had bite thru skin, but they looked like, well, chicken balls.

and i have no idea WHY that makes them good.

how about taste? does that count at all? i bet he is quite the cook. but tweezers and arguing over garnish... i dunno.

mad max beyond eggdome

i hear you on the garage door buddy .. .

my point on the competition though, is that the typical investment to enter and attend a kcbs competition is around 500 bucks (not including travel costs)...and when the difference between winning enough money to cover those costs and then some, or going home empty handed, is measured in decimal points, you need to take every single thing into account.. . at KCBS taste is weighted heavier that texture or appearance (i forget the exact spread). .. . but as we all know, your eyes go directly to your tongue. ..i.e., if it looks good, its gonna taste good... and those appearance scores can make the difference between winning and losing. ...

as far as myron goes, he's won more than he's lost by a long shot. . .and he really only uses those muffin pans not to shape the thighs but to get consistency of size....they still look like thighs.. . .i've seen far stranger things done to try to get that little extra score. ...

smoky b

what is the strangest you've seen?