I triumphantly achieved the success of some damn good bbq chicken. It may have been the best bbq chicken I have ever eaten, that’s why I called it dope-ass chicken. Dope=good.
That’s a big, bold statement, but it may be true. I know chicken, and I love chicken. Roasted chicken is one of my favorite dishes; it’s the first thing I would eat after setting foot in Paris.
Bbq chicken and smoked chicken are two different things. We can use the same ceramic smoker grill for both. The difference is using wood or charcoal. Another difference is if you are smoking low and slow or grilling your proteins quickly.
I made smoked chicken thighs at the end of the summer last year, and they came out delicious. I made a sticky & sweet glaze for them, which made them even tastier.
This time I grilled the chicken thighs using lump wood charcoal. We set the grill up with a hot side and a cooler side. This is also referred to as direct and indirect heat.
Since this is all new for me, I researched tons of bbq chicken blog posts and recipes. Everyone has their way when it comes to using a rub or brine. Both are used to add deep flavor to the chicken, not just coasting the skin.
When using a rub, it is applied for several hours or overnight to the chicken. This is called a dry brine; a new cooking terminology for me. I don’t associate the words dry and brine together since they are opposite things.
The other method of getting flavor into the chicken is brining. Brining poultry is submerging the poultry in a solution of water, salt, sugar, spices, and herbs for 24-48 hours.
I think back to the old days when people’s mothers and grandmothers soaked their poultry in saltwater before baking it. They were brining back then and didn’t even know it. Here comes the but; they baked the living shit out of it, leaving it dry as fuck out of fear of food poisoning.
Brining poultry didn’t become popular until the early 2000s when the magazine Cooks Illustrated introduced and endorsed the brining method. It caught on and became all the rage. After two decades of brining being the golden child, some chefs like Alex Garnaschelli are “over it” even though the internet is flooded with her famous turkey brining recipe.
I decided to use a rub for the dry brining method for the chicken. I looked up various recipes for chicken rubs and picked one. The one I chose was a home run, so I am glad I went with my instincts.
Here is the link to the rub recipe I used for my chicken even though the title of the recipe is Barbecue Pork Rub Recipe.
I dry brined my chicken for 9 hours which was plenty of time for the flavor to penetrate the chicken thighs.
While the chicken was dry brining, I looked up different bbq sauces recipes. They are millions of them, just to let you know. I filtered through many and decided to make an “old-fashioned” bbq sauce. I didn’t realize there was a difference, but there is.
One blog explained how old-fashioned bbq sauces aren’t cooked like most but have melted butter in them. Butter in bbq sauce may seem a bit odd, but what do I know I am new to this.
I picked the sauce recipe called Old Fashioned Bbq Chicken and Sauce from the blog that explained old-fashioned bbq sauce. After I made the sauce I tasted it, I was surprised by how bright it was. Old fashioned bbq sauces also have lemon juice in them; that’s where the brightness comes from.
For the hell of it, I added the lemon juice last because I wanted to see if it made a difference in the sauce. It made a huge difference! It made the sauce.
Grilling chicken goes fast and can overcook quickly something I didn’t want to happen. I got out the temperature probe so I could keep an eye on things.
The chicken is placed skin side down over the hot direct heat for 3-5 minutes I did 4. I was shocked at how dark the skin got so quickly. One was a little too black, so I took the skin off that piece. It didn’t matter in the end.
The chicken is flipped over the direct heat side for another 3-5 minutes. I did 3 this time.
The chicken is then moved to the other side of the grill to the cooler indirect heat. I had the meat probe set for 175 degrees to make sure the chicken was done all the way through.
The probe goes through the thickness part of the chicken part but away from the bone. I inserted the probe until I hit the bone, then backed it up. I saw that trick on YouTube.
Bbq sauce shouldn’t be applied to the chicken too early, or it will burn from the sugar in the sauce. All my dad’s friends applied theirs too soon ruining the chicken. I hated eating the bitter burned chicken; I ate it though because I had to.😖
I waited until the chicken reached 155 degrees before adding the sauce to one side of the chicken. I let it cook for 10 minutes and flipped it over and brushed the sauce on the other side.
I repeated this a couple of times ending with the skin side up and a final brushing of sauce. I pulled the chicken off when my 175-degree temperature alert went off on the remote.
I let the chicken sit at room temp for 10 minutes to let the juices redistribute themselves. Wow, did this work! The chicken thighs were so moist and juicy. The insides were glistening like Marty’s brisket did. Yum!
The skin was done just right. Even the one piece that lost its skin at the beginning of the cook tasted perfect because the sauce still coated the skinless chicken thigh like the other ones.
This morning, I ate a piece of cold chicken for breakfast. It was still moist and had a better flavor than two nights before.
So I made dope-ass bbq chicken. The real question is can I do it again? We will see.