The South's Juiciest and Most Tender BBQ Chicken

[00:00] Now, I'd bet my last dollar that you've

[00:02] never actually had great barbecue

[00:04] chicken. Not because you haven't tried,

[00:06] but because what most people think of

[00:08] barbecue chicken is not even close to

[00:10] the real thing. The real standard comes

[00:12] from competition pit masters, where a

[00:14] single bite can win or lose a trophy.

[00:17] Competition style barbecue, where the

[00:19] skin is so perfectly rendered that it

[00:21] breaks clean when you bite through it.

[00:23] No pulling, no tearing, just a perfect

[00:25] bite mark through the skin and the meat.

[00:28] both perfectly tender and juicy. That's

[00:31] what we're making today. This is

[00:32] competition style barbecue chicken. And

[00:35] it starts with chicken thighs. But

[00:36] before we get started on that, I need to

[00:38] make a simple barbecue rub for them.

[00:41] Now, we're going to omit salt and add

[00:42] that directly to it. To our barbecue

[00:44] rub, we're going to add about a

[00:45] tablespoon of chili powder. Then about a

[00:47] teaspoon of everything else. cumin,

[00:49] coriander, garlic powder, onion powder,

[00:52] a good bit of paprika for that color,

[00:54] maybe a tablespoon, maybe a half a

[00:56] teaspoon of cayenne for the heat. Then

[00:58] about a teaspoon of mustard powder,

[01:00] about a teaspoon of sugar, black pepper.

[01:03] Give that a stir. Going to get that into

[01:05] a little empty spice bottle where I'll

[01:07] store my little spice blend for when I

[01:09] need it. People make you buy this when

[01:11] everything is just in your pantry. Now

[01:13] that we have that ready, we can get into

[01:15] our chicken. What we have here is some

[01:18] nice bone in skin on chicken thighs.

[01:21] First thing we want to do, we have this

[01:22] little knuckle sticking out here. And

[01:25] take my knife and just square off that

[01:28] edge.

[01:30] I'm just going to trim up the bottom.

[01:35] Then we've got all this skin here, which

[01:36] I don't need all that excess. So, we're

[01:39] just going to remove it.

[01:41] Now I'm going to take where the skin is

[01:43] starting to kind of pull away. And then

[01:46] it's just sort of barely staying

[01:47] attached to the chicken down here. And I

[01:50] want to take my knife and I want to

[01:52] start to scrape the inside of the skin.

[01:54] There's this subcutaneous fat under the

[01:57] skin that doesn't render at low

[01:59] temperatures. And so scraping it is

[02:02] what's going to give us that bite

[02:03] through skin. Now you can take that skin

[02:06] and we're just going to wrap it. And now

[02:08] they should hold on their own, but if

[02:10] you want you can stick a little

[02:11] toothpick in there and that'll hold it

[02:13] together. Once it cooks it sort of

[02:15] congeals and stays that way. Now we're

[02:17] going to take them season with salt.

[02:20] Then our rub and then get only the meat

[02:22] side on the top. Try and avoid getting

[02:25] the skin too seasoned. Now we're just

[02:27] going to assemble them back up. And

[02:29] again, you don't have to do this, but

[02:31] you can kind of cinch them closed with a

[02:34] toothpick. Now you don't have to do all

[02:36] the trimming and all that stuff. I'm

[02:37] giving you a general technique and

[02:39] generally trying to show you how you

[02:40] might do this in a competition, but it

[02:42] all applies at home. Generally, you want

[02:45] them roughly equal size so they cook the

[02:48] same and they're all the same sort of

[02:50] product to a judge. So, these are going

[02:52] to go in the fridge uncovered. Then,

[02:53] we're going to take them over to the

[02:55] grill in the morning. And before we get

[02:57] started on the chicken, we need to get

[02:59] our grill fired up and preheated. And

[03:02] whether you have like a Komado style

[03:04] grill like this or Weber kettle, you can

[03:07] set this up the same way. First, in this

[03:09] corner right here, I've got this little

[03:11] sear box. If you just have a kettle, you

[03:13] can just put it off to the corner. And

[03:15] I'm going to take some big chunks of

[03:18] some lump charcoal. Good quality

[03:20] charcoal. Couple little pieces. Couple

[03:22] big pieces. Then we're going to place

[03:24] our starter. Fire it up.

[03:27] What we're looking to do here is create

[03:29] white hot coals in this section as like

[03:33] a way of getting it all started. Once

[03:35] that's white hot, we're going to fill up

[03:36] the rest of the basket or just bundle it

[03:39] up into a corner. We're going to add

[03:41] some wood to get it nice and smoky. Then

[03:43] we're going to close the grill, open up

[03:44] the vents, and try and slowly bring this

[03:47] up to temperature and work our way

[03:49] towards clean smoke. Now, if you don't

[03:52] know, my first job on YouTube, the first

[03:54] thing that paid me was a barbecue

[03:56] company hiring me to make the videos,

[04:00] make the recipes, and if you know

[04:02] anything about the barbecue community,

[04:03] they're passionate group of individuals

[04:05] who can spot a fraud from a mile away.

[04:07] So, I worked hard to be a truly

[04:09] competent pitm. And one of the keys to

[04:12] becoming one is knowing the difference

[04:13] between clean smoke and dirty smoke.

[04:17] clean smokes. What happens in the

[04:19] beginning when the fire is not hot

[04:20] enough, the smoke becomes thick and

[04:23] white. When you smell it, it's bitter

[04:25] and acrid and those compounds connecting

[04:28] to your meat. It's going to be a bad

[04:30] smoky flavor. You never want to lift the

[04:33] hood of the grill and have white thick

[04:35] smoke billowing out of it. That's the

[04:38] sign of somebody who doesn't understand

[04:39] smoke. Good smoke, also known as blue

[04:42] smoke. There's even a restaurant named

[04:44] after it. That's the sweet spot. It's

[04:46] when the smoke clarifies a bit, becomes

[04:49] almost a bluish hinge, and the aroma is

[04:52] sweeter. That's the smoke you want to

[04:54] adhere to your meat. And that's why you

[04:56] need to warm this up before you start

[04:58] cooking anything. Now, you can already

[04:59] see a little bit of white hot spots

[05:01] starting to develop. Nowadays, we got

[05:03] these cool little handheld fans,

[05:05] blowers. This is going to help

[05:07] supercharge and speed up this process.

[05:09] You know, a fire needs air and oxygen,

[05:11] and this creates a whole lot of it. So,

[05:13] it's almost like using a flamethrower to

[05:15] warm up those coals and get them going.

[05:18] You'll probably burn through the starter

[05:19] a bit faster, but those coals are

[05:22] starting to glow white hot now, which is

[05:24] what you want. So, now we got our coals

[05:26] going. We just supercharged the process.

[05:28] Took a couple minutes rather than like

[05:29] 15 to 20. I've got some apple wood here.

[05:32] You can use the wood of your choice.

[05:34] Going to place it down on the bottom of

[05:36] the grate. And I'm going to go ahead and

[05:38] toss in and fill up the basket with more

[05:40] coals. Get that cooking again. That's

[05:43] going to be all the fuel we need to cook

[05:45] these chicken thighs. Then we can close

[05:47] that grate. And you can see this thick

[05:49] smoke starting to acrue. This white

[05:53] smoke,

[05:54] that's not what you want. We need to

[05:56] allow this to warm up to so that white

[05:58] smoke sort of clarifies and turns into

[06:00] that blue smoke that we spoke about. So,

[06:02] what I want to do now is close the lid

[06:03] to about one or two. And I'm going to go

[06:06] to the bottom and close it to about

[06:09] three. And I'm going to use that to just

[06:11] slowly bring this temp up and try and

[06:14] hit about 250 degrees ambient

[06:16] temperature where the food is going to

[06:18] be cooked. After about 3540 minutes, you

[06:22] see what's going on here? You see that

[06:23] thick white smoke? That's gone. The

[06:25] temperature has gotten hot enough so

[06:27] that all that coal and wood burns

[06:29] cleanly. The thermometer says about 325

[06:33] and that thermometer is up top. So that

[06:35] means on great level, cooking level,

[06:36] it's around 50° lower, about 270. That's

[06:40] about the temperature we're ready to

[06:42] cook our chicken. Now, here we've got

[06:43] our chicken at it been in the fridge

[06:46] overnight. All I've done is I have one

[06:48] of these uh pans that you get from the

[06:50] supermarket. I filled it with some

[06:52] chicken stock just to cover the bottom

[06:54] and a few knobs of butter. That's going

[06:56] to be the moisture that they both smoke

[06:58] over in the first half of the cook. And

[07:01] then the second half of the cook, the

[07:02] liquid, we're going to braze it in to

[07:04] make sure it breaks down and get nice

[07:05] and tender. Now, to make competition

[07:08] style chicken or any meat for that

[07:10] matter, you need a vital piece of

[07:12] equipment that's going to keep track of

[07:13] the temperature inside of the meat so

[07:15] that we can ensure we always eat the

[07:17] perfect thing. Chicken thighs vary in

[07:19] size, they vary in thickness, and so one

[07:22] batch might cook for an hour, one might

[07:24] cook for an hour and 45. Thanks to our

[07:27] sponsor today, the Tyer Sync Gold Duel,

[07:30] we can both manage the internal

[07:32] temperature of our chicken and do it

[07:35] basically from anywhere. And you need

[07:37] wireless probes, right? Because this is

[07:39] going to go inside of the grill. And you

[07:41] don't want to be fumbling around with

[07:42] wires everywhere. This thing's got six

[07:44] probes running through it. Five inside

[07:47] and one on the outside to monitor the

[07:49] ambient temp of the grill. What's nice

[07:51] about that is you can insert that

[07:52] anywhere and the probes will

[07:53] automatically find the lowest point. So

[07:56] you don't need to worry about how you

[07:57] put it in. It's going to find the lowest

[07:59] temp. With our thermometers in, our

[08:00] smoke is clean. All we got to do place

[08:03] everything right onto the grill on the

[08:05] indirect side and then close the grill

[08:07] and we can start to monitor the cook.

[08:08] Now we can do this from anywhere. We can

[08:10] manually set the temperature. You can go

[08:12] from anywhere from 185 to I like it a

[08:15] little bit more up to 190. And the range

[08:18] on this is crazy. I can of course

[08:20] monitor it next to it or I can monitor

[08:22] it inside. I can monitor in the

[08:24] bathroom. I can monitor it 3,000 feet

[08:27] from an unobstructed view and 700 feet

[08:29] if it's obstructive, but we can do

[08:32] better than that. Say you forgot some

[08:33] barbecue sauce. You got to go run an

[08:35] errand into town. With the Tyer app, you

[08:37] can monitor all the data from your cook

[08:40] with literally an unlimited range. With

[08:42] this thing, you'll never screw up a

[08:44] piece of meat again. And Tyer's Mother's

[08:46] Day sale is going on through May 10th.

[08:48] Prices are already marked down. So, if

[08:50] you need yourself a reliable

[08:52] thermometer, then use my code cook show.

[08:54] They're going to give you an extra 10%

[08:56] off. Check out the link in my

[08:57] description. Now, as we arrive around

[09:00] our cooking temperature, the ambient

[09:02] temperature around 275. We're already

[09:04] around 250. So, what I am going to do is

[09:07] start to refine my vents. Right. I'm

[09:10] going to go down and we're going to

[09:12] close it ever so gently to lower it back

[09:16] down and simmer. So it just gently

[09:17] arrives around 275. And the same with

[09:21] the top. These little adjustments are

[09:23] what make you raise the temperature and

[09:25] lower the temperature. And you do it in

[09:27] very small increments so you never flare

[09:29] the heat up too high and lose control.

[09:32] But we've got control with our Typher

[09:34] sink. The ambient temperature changes is

[09:36] this is obviously the one in the back

[09:38] and this is the one closest to the heat.

[09:39] So now that chicken is going to go on

[09:41] for 30 minutes and it's going to soak up

[09:43] that good blue smoke, that flavorful

[09:45] smoke. After 30 minutes, we're hoping it

[09:47] arrives around 140 or 150 internal

[09:50] temperature in which we're going to then

[09:52] cook it in that chicken stock and

[09:54] butter. We're going to do that for

[09:55] another 30 45 minutes until we reach our

[09:58] 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.