[0:00] Now, I'd bet my last dollar that you've
[0:02] never actually had great barbecue
[0:04] chicken. Not because you haven't tried,
[0:06] but because what most people think of
[0:08] barbecue chicken is not even close to
[0:10] the real thing. The real standard comes
[0:12] from competition pit masters, where a
[0:14] single bite can win or lose a trophy.
[0:17] Competition style barbecue, where the
[0:19] skin is so perfectly rendered that it
[0:21] breaks clean when you bite through it.
[0:23] No pulling, no tearing, just a perfect
[0:25] bite mark through the skin and the meat.
[0:28] both perfectly tender and juicy. That's
[0:31] what we're making today. This is
[0:32] competition style barbecue chicken. And
[0:35] it starts with chicken thighs. But
[0:36] before we get started on that, I need to
[0:38] make a simple barbecue rub for them.
[0:41] Now, we're going to omit salt and add
[0:42] that directly to it. To our barbecue
[0:44] rub, we're going to add about a
[0:45] tablespoon of chili powder. Then about a
[0:47] teaspoon of everything else. cumin,
[0:49] coriander, garlic powder, onion powder,
[0:52] a good bit of paprika for that color,
[0:54] maybe a tablespoon, maybe a half a
[0:56] teaspoon of cayenne for the heat. Then
[0:58] about a teaspoon of mustard powder,
[1:00] about a teaspoon of sugar, black pepper.
[1:03] Give that a stir. Going to get that into
[1:05] a little empty spice bottle where I'll
[1:07] store my little spice blend for when I
[1:09] need it. People make you buy this when
[1:11] everything is just in your pantry. Now
[1:13] that we have that ready, we can get into
[1:15] our chicken. What we have here is some
[1:18] nice bone in skin on chicken thighs.
[1:21] First thing we want to do, we have this
[1:22] little knuckle sticking out here. And
[1:25] take my knife and just square off that
[1:28] edge.
[1:30] I'm just going to trim up the bottom.
[1:35] Then we've got all this skin here, which
[1:36] I don't need all that excess. So, we're
[1:39] just going to remove it.
[1:41] Now I'm going to take where the skin is
[1:43] starting to kind of pull away. And then
[1:46] it's just sort of barely staying
[1:47] attached to the chicken down here. And I
[1:50] want to take my knife and I want to
[1:52] start to scrape the inside of the skin.
[1:54] There's this subcutaneous fat under the
[1:57] skin that doesn't render at low
[1:59] temperatures. And so scraping it is
[2:02] what's going to give us that bite
[2:03] through skin. Now you can take that skin
[2:06] and we're just going to wrap it. And now
[2:08] they should hold on their own, but if
[2:10] you want you can stick a little
[2:11] toothpick in there and that'll hold it
[2:13] together. Once it cooks it sort of
[2:15] congeals and stays that way. Now we're
[2:17] going to take them season with salt.
[2:20] Then our rub and then get only the meat
[2:22] side on the top. Try and avoid getting
[2:25] the skin too seasoned. Now we're just
[2:27] going to assemble them back up. And
[2:29] again, you don't have to do this, but
[2:31] you can kind of cinch them closed with a
[2:34] toothpick. Now you don't have to do all
[2:36] the trimming and all that stuff. I'm
[2:37] giving you a general technique and
[2:39] generally trying to show you how you
[2:40] might do this in a competition, but it
[2:42] all applies at home. Generally, you want
[2:45] them roughly equal size so they cook the
[2:48] same and they're all the same sort of
[2:50] product to a judge. So, these are going
[2:52] to go in the fridge uncovered. Then,
[2:53] we're going to take them over to the
[2:55] grill in the morning. And before we get
[2:57] started on the chicken, we need to get
[2:59] our grill fired up and preheated. And
[3:02] whether you have like a Komado style
[3:04] grill like this or Weber kettle, you can
[3:07] set this up the same way. First, in this
[3:09] corner right here, I've got this little
[3:11] sear box. If you just have a kettle, you
[3:13] can just put it off to the corner. And
[3:15] I'm going to take some big chunks of
[3:18] some lump charcoal. Good quality
[3:20] charcoal. Couple little pieces. Couple
[3:22] big pieces. Then we're going to place
[3:24] our starter. Fire it up.
[3:27] What we're looking to do here is create
[3:29] white hot coals in this section as like
[3:33] a way of getting it all started. Once
[3:35] that's white hot, we're going to fill up
[3:36] the rest of the basket or just bundle it
[3:39] up into a corner. We're going to add
[3:41] some wood to get it nice and smoky. Then
[3:43] we're going to close the grill, open up
[3:44] the vents, and try and slowly bring this
[3:47] up to temperature and work our way
[3:49] towards clean smoke. Now, if you don't
[3:52] know, my first job on YouTube, the first
[3:54] thing that paid me was a barbecue
[3:56] company hiring me to make the videos,
[4:00] make the recipes, and if you know
[4:02] anything about the barbecue community,
[4:03] they're passionate group of individuals
[4:05] who can spot a fraud from a mile away.
[4:07] So, I worked hard to be a truly
[4:09] competent pitm. And one of the keys to
[4:12] becoming one is knowing the difference
[4:13] between clean smoke and dirty smoke.
[4:17] clean smokes. What happens in the
[4:19] beginning when the fire is not hot
[4:20] enough, the smoke becomes thick and
[4:23] white. When you smell it, it's bitter
[4:25] and acrid and those compounds connecting
[4:28] to your meat. It's going to be a bad
[4:30] smoky flavor. You never want to lift the
[4:33] hood of the grill and have white thick
[4:35] smoke billowing out of it. That's the
[4:38] sign of somebody who doesn't understand
[4:39] smoke. Good smoke, also known as blue
[4:42] smoke. There's even a restaurant named
[4:44] after it. That's the sweet spot. It's
[4:46] when the smoke clarifies a bit, becomes
[4:49] almost a bluish hinge, and the aroma is
[4:52] sweeter. That's the smoke you want to
[4:54] adhere to your meat. And that's why you
[4:56] need to warm this up before you start
[4:58] cooking anything. Now, you can already
[4:59] see a little bit of white hot spots
[5:01] starting to develop. Nowadays, we got
[5:03] these cool little handheld fans,
[5:05] blowers. This is going to help
[5:07] supercharge and speed up this process.
[5:09] You know, a fire needs air and oxygen,
[5:11] and this creates a whole lot of it. So,
[5:13] it's almost like using a flamethrower to
[5:15] warm up those coals and get them going.
[5:18] You'll probably burn through the starter
[5:19] a bit faster, but those coals are
[5:22] starting to glow white hot now, which is
[5:24] what you want. So, now we got our coals
[5:26] going. We just supercharged the process.
[5:28] Took a couple minutes rather than like
[5:29] 15 to 20. I've got some apple wood here.
[5:32] You can use the wood of your choice.
[5:34] Going to place it down on the bottom of
[5:36] the grate. And I'm going to go ahead and
[5:38] toss in and fill up the basket with more
[5:40] coals. Get that cooking again. That's
[5:43] going to be all the fuel we need to cook
[5:45] these chicken thighs. Then we can close
[5:47] that grate. And you can see this thick
[5:49] smoke starting to acrue. This white
[5:53] smoke,
[5:54] that's not what you want. We need to
[5:56] allow this to warm up to so that white
[5:58] smoke sort of clarifies and turns into
[6:00] that blue smoke that we spoke about. So,
[6:02] what I want to do now is close the lid
[6:03] to about one or two. And I'm going to go
[6:06] to the bottom and close it to about
[6:09] three. And I'm going to use that to just
[6:11] slowly bring this temp up and try and
[6:14] hit about 250 degrees ambient
[6:16] temperature where the food is going to
[6:18] be cooked. After about 3540 minutes, you
[6:22] see what's going on here? You see that
[6:23] thick white smoke? That's gone. The
[6:25] temperature has gotten hot enough so
[6:27] that all that coal and wood burns
[6:29] cleanly. The thermometer says about 325
[6:33] and that thermometer is up top. So that
[6:35] means on great level, cooking level,
[6:36] it's around 50° lower, about 270. That's
[6:40] about the temperature we're ready to
[6:42] cook our chicken. Now, here we've got
[6:43] our chicken at it been in the fridge
[6:46] overnight. All I've done is I have one
[6:48] of these uh pans that you get from the
[6:50] supermarket. I filled it with some
[6:52] chicken stock just to cover the bottom
[6:54] and a few knobs of butter. That's going
[6:56] to be the moisture that they both smoke
[6:58] over in the first half of the cook. And
[7:01] then the second half of the cook, the
[7:02] liquid, we're going to braze it in to
[7:04] make sure it breaks down and get nice
[7:05] and tender. Now, to make competition
[7:08] style chicken or any meat for that
[7:10] matter, you need a vital piece of
[7:12] equipment that's going to keep track of
[7:13] the temperature inside of the meat so
[7:15] that we can ensure we always eat the
[7:17] perfect thing. Chicken thighs vary in
[7:19] size, they vary in thickness, and so one
[7:22] batch might cook for an hour, one might
[7:24] cook for an hour and 45. Thanks to our
[7:27] sponsor today, the Tyer Sync Gold Duel,
[7:30] we can both manage the internal
[7:32] temperature of our chicken and do it
[7:35] basically from anywhere. And you need
[7:37] wireless probes, right? Because this is
[7:39] going to go inside of the grill. And you
[7:41] don't want to be fumbling around with
[7:42] wires everywhere. This thing's got six
[7:44] probes running through it. Five inside
[7:47] and one on the outside to monitor the
[7:49] ambient temp of the grill. What's nice
[7:51] about that is you can insert that
[7:52] anywhere and the probes will
[7:53] automatically find the lowest point. So
[7:56] you don't need to worry about how you
[7:57] put it in. It's going to find the lowest
[7:59] temp. With our thermometers in, our
[8:00] smoke is clean. All we got to do place
[8:03] everything right onto the grill on the
[8:05] indirect side and then close the grill
[8:07] and we can start to monitor the cook.
[8:08] Now we can do this from anywhere. We can
[8:10] manually set the temperature. You can go
[8:12] from anywhere from 185 to I like it a
[8:15] little bit more up to 190. And the range
[8:18] on this is crazy. I can of course
[8:20] monitor it next to it or I can monitor
[8:22] it inside. I can monitor in the
[8:24] bathroom. I can monitor it 3,000 feet
[8:27] from an unobstructed view and 700 feet
[8:29] if it's obstructive, but we can do
[8:32] better than that. Say you forgot some
[8:33] barbecue sauce. You got to go run an
[8:35] errand into town. With the Tyer app, you
[8:37] can monitor all the data from your cook
[8:40] with literally an unlimited range. With
[8:42] this thing, you'll never screw up a
[8:44] piece of meat again. And Tyer's Mother's
[8:46] Day sale is going on through May 10th.
[8:48] Prices are already marked down. So, if
[8:50] you need yourself a reliable
[8:52] thermometer, then use my code cook show.
[8:54] They're going to give you an extra 10%
[8:56] off. Check out the link in my
[8:57] description. Now, as we arrive around
[9:00] our cooking temperature, the ambient
[9:02] temperature around 275. We're already
[9:04] around 250. So, what I am going to do is
[9:07] start to refine my vents. Right. I'm
[9:10] going to go down and we're going to
[9:12] close it ever so gently to lower it back
[9:16] down and simmer. So it just gently
[9:17] arrives around 275. And the same with
[9:21] the top. These little adjustments are
[9:23] what make you raise the temperature and
[9:25] lower the temperature. And you do it in
[9:27] very small increments so you never flare
[9:29] the heat up too high and lose control.
[9:32] But we've got control with our Typher
[9:34] sink. The ambient temperature changes is
[9:36] this is obviously the one in the back
[9:38] and this is the one closest to the heat.
[9:39] So now that chicken is going to go on
[9:41] for 30 minutes and it's going to soak up
[9:43] that good blue smoke, that flavorful
[9:45] smoke. After 30 minutes, we're hoping it
[9:47] arrives around 140 or 150 internal
[9:50] temperature in which we're going to then
[9:52] cook it in that chicken stock and
[9:54] butter. We're going to do that for
[9:55] another 30 45 minutes until we reach our
[9:58] final internal temperature of around
[10:01] 190, which we set into our sink. Now,
[10:03] because I'm measuring two pieces of
[10:05] chicken at different sides and they're
[10:07] cooking at different temperatures now
[10:09] about 15 minutes has gone by, I want to
[10:11] rotate them and try and even it out. I
[10:14] can see the temperature is getting a
[10:15] little higher on one side than I want.
[10:17] So, I'm just going to gently close it to
[10:20] just a crack.
[10:22] And the same down below. Soon though,
[10:24] we're going to open these back up
[10:26] because the second part of this phase,
[10:28] we need to get the temperature up to
[10:29] 400. So, the first stage is a low, slow
[10:32] smoke. The second stage is a hotter
[10:34] braze. Now, we're about 5 minutes away
[10:37] from the end of phase one and the
[10:39] beginning of phase two. Now, phase two
[10:41] requires us to get the temp inside of
[10:43] the grill up to around 375400.
[10:45] So, what I'm going to do now, open the
[10:48] grates back up. All we're doing is
[10:51] managing air flow going in to get more
[10:54] heat kicked up. And then to lower the
[10:56] heat, we close the air off. Subtle moves
[10:59] make a bigger difference than you think.
[11:01] Our chicken's now about 150° internal.
[11:05] Now, here's what we want to do. Going to
[11:07] set the grade off to the side, but we're
[11:09] going to use it later. We've got our
[11:10] broth here with our butter in it. Just
[11:13] going to take our chicken, remove the
[11:15] toothpick, and then place them in the
[11:17] broth, cover them in foil, and then get
[11:20] them back on the grill. Then I'm going
[11:21] to place the grates back on and lay one
[11:23] of these foil sort of bread tins with
[11:26] your favorite barbecue sauce. And we're
[11:28] just going to get that back onto the
[11:29] grill.
[11:31] Now, I'm going to give that another 30
[11:33] minutes, and we're going to see where
[11:34] we're at. Now, as you'll see on our
[11:36] Typer sink, that 20° gap is now about
[11:39] 10. And that's because of a thing called
[11:40] evaporative cooling or the stall. It's
[11:44] something you hit with a brisket, a
[11:45] pulled pork, any sort of tough, dark
[11:48] meat. And so, while the other one was
[11:49] ahead, that reached the stall quicker.
[11:52] Just like when we sweat, we cool
[11:54] ourselves down. The meat is doing the
[11:55] same thing, preventing the temperature
[11:58] from increasing at the same rate it was
[12:00] 30 minutes ago. But this is when this
[12:02] the cooking process slows down a bit and
[12:05] you got to be patient and allow it to
[12:06] get through to that tender zone, which
[12:09] for me is around 185 at minimum all the
[12:12] way up to 205. So, we've reached our
[12:15] target temp. Let's get it off the heat.
[12:17] We got our barbecue sauce here ready to
[12:19] go. It's nice and hot, which we need.
[12:21] So, now we can just unwrap them and we
[12:24] can pull them out and take out the
[12:26] thermometer. So now we're just going to
[12:27] take our chicken, our little nuggets.
[12:34] You want to be gentle, right? We're
[12:36] trying to win a competition here. And I
[12:37] want that lacquer on the surface to stay
[12:41] perfect.
[12:44] Now our grill's fired up. It's nice and
[12:46] hot. We're going to get them back on the
[12:48] grill. Close it up. And every few
[12:50] minutes, we're going to take our
[12:52] barbecue sauce and just spoon some more
[12:54] over. Like to just pour it over. You do
[12:58] waste a little bit, but what you do is
[13:00] you get this really incredible looking
[13:02] end result. Close it back up. And then
[13:04] we just want to set that second coating.
[13:09] Three times should do it. Almost like
[13:12] glazing a cake.
[13:15] Just going to give these a second to
[13:17] cool down before we present them to the
[13:19] judges. Now, I'm not sure why, but a
[13:21] betetta kale seems to be the preferred
[13:24] way to present it to the judges. So, out
[13:26] of our cooked chicken, we're going to
[13:28] select the four best pieces. What I'm
[13:30] looking for is the equal shape, the best
[13:32] looking, the most consistently shaped
[13:35] four pieces.
[13:39] Now, we're going to give one a bite.
[13:42] It's a little tear, a little pull on the
[13:44] skin, but as you could see, bite
[13:45] through. Moist,
[13:48] juicy, tender. Now, because of the skin,
[13:51] I would have lost the competition. I
[13:53] think these cooked a bit faster than
[13:55] when I tested them. A little less time
[13:57] in the braise, which didn't allow the
[13:59] skin enough time to break down.
[14:01] Everything else, 10 out of 10. Chicken's
[14:03] cooked great. It's tender. It's moist.
[14:05] It's glazed right. It's not a
[14:07] competition cuz it's easy. When I tested
[14:09] this, also brazed it uncovered. Allows
[14:12] that skin to get a little bit more crisp
[14:13] and have a little more bite- through
[14:15] tenderness to it. So, you can experiment
[14:17] how you want, but if you want the recipe
[14:19] and you want to make this this summer,
[14:20] which I recommend you do, recipe is
[14:22] going to be down in the description.
[14:24] Thank you, Tyer, for sponsoring this
[14:26] video. That's all that I have today.
[14:27] I'll see you next time. Until then, take
[14:29] care of yourself and go feed yourself.