Crispy skin on BBQ chicken can be a tricky thing. The slow roasted fat-rendering is just not something our fast paced world takes care to do. Plus if you’re attempting to slowly smoke poultry a lot of times you can end up with a rubbery skin.
Salt The Chicken Under the Skin
Here’s a trick to control the barbecue chicken. It’s easy but takes a bit of time. Four hours prep time to be exact.
The secret is in salting the pieces (you can spice the salt a bit see recipe below).
I call it a dry brine. Rub your spice blend into the meat UNDER the skin and lightly on the skin surface on all sides. Thenplace the pieces on a pan uncovered in the refrigerator to dry fro four hours. You can experiment with the time if you want but it has worked repeatedly for me with different sized pieces.
After four hours remove and if ther is any moisture on the pieces of chicken blot with towel (I did not see any when I did the video).
I used a water pan smoker (Brinkmann Gourmet Charcoal) and cooked low (about 270 degrees) for about an hour with pecan wood smoke (wood chips). The result was a golden brown crispy skin that is tought to find without a rotisserie.
Crispy Skin BBQ Chicken
Internal temp was over 160 so after a quick slather of a sweet sauce I lowered the grate (use the bottom of the smoker without the middle piece or fire up your grill to HIGH) and seared the pieces over a direct high heat. Pay attention here this process is quick and flame ups happen quickly.
Be prepared to remove from the grill at any point.
The result was a crispy – bite through – succulent batch of bbq chicken. See the result in the video and “thumb it up” and subscribe if you like.
