Playing Chicken to Win
By Jeff Wheeler, aka bigwheel
     
Introduction 

This tutorial is designed to help the outdoor cooking enthusiast in obtaining  a superior barbecued chicken. As I take much pride in my humility, I will forego any claims to being an expert on the topic. What few provable claims I do make regarding my competence level may be found below:

1. Over 35 years experience in all forms of outdoor cooking.

2. Active competition barbecue cook in the Fort Worth/Dallas area.

3. Some notable success on the local cook-off circuit. 

4. Particular success in the competition chicken category.

The methods suggested are tried and true. They have been invented on the spot, donated, begged, borrowed and pilfered during the course of many barbecue cook offs and backyard sessions over the years. My hope is that all will find something useful on these few pages which will result in a better bird. I remind you there are no guarantees either expressed or implied. If your chicken turns out skunky don't blame me, as you probably didn't follow directions. Pass on the information at your own risk because if you start giving away these hard earned secrets somebody is liable to use it to kick your fat booty at a cook off somewhere down the line, plus it could result in the "Curse of the Mummy" being inflicted upon your household.  

I. First you catches a chicken

For competition cooking use fresh young whole normal sized frying chickens in the range of 3.5 to 4.5 pounds. My personal preference on brand is "Sanderson Farms" closely followed by "Pilgrim's Pride".  These two brands are pretty much pure chicken without additives or injections.  Pilgrims Pride Chickens are white while the Sanderson's Farms is a  yellow Chicken. Not sure the difference in the diet but the yellow birds seem to be a little more flavorful.  While I'm sure there are many more good brands of chicken which I haven't tried, I don't like "Tyson" or the fat "Butterballs" as both brands contain undesirable additives. Also stay away from the "free range" or exotic yuppie chickens, as they are too expensive and not fat enough for comp cooking. Don't use the big "Roasting" chickens either as they are too tough. 

Check the expiration date prior to purchase and choose those with the longest time left until expiration. Try to buy the chickens no earlier than the day before the cook off and ice them down immediately. Fresh chickens should be kept as near freezing as possible and packing them in ice will come closer to this goal than keeping them in the refrigerator. 

How many chickens to buy is sure up to you, but for competition I always try for at least two. Get them as close to the same size as possible. The uniform size becomes important when you are in a large cook off which requires you turn in two halves. If you mess up one or two halves it still leaves you two for turn in, and it looks better if they are roughly the same size. In addition cooking four halves gives you some extra for snacking purposes, feeding kinfolks etc. 

While it might seem a good idea to let the butcher split the chickens for you, don't do it. Butchers nearly always cut them lopsided and/or mess up the skin on the breast. In addition splitting and rewrapping in the butcher's plastic wrap will tend to make the chickens become more prone to getting water soaked while in the ice. Split them yourself at the cook off.  

II. Then you cleans the chicken 

Begin your chicken prep on the night before you plan to cook. For example most cook offs officially begin on Friday afternoon so plan on getting your chickens ready then. If you have other meat to prepare, go ahead and prep the other stuff saving the chickens for last. Find yourself a comfortable seat with a table; drag out your cutting board, and a sharp knife or two. Grab a brewski and get ready to split. 

Take the chicken out of the bag and clean the inside, tossing the paper bag, guts, giblets or whatever else is inside. Lay the chicken breast side down on the cutting board and cut down the middle of the back (a heavy duty serrated edge butcher knife works great for this operation). After cutting through the backbone stop, flatten the chicken out somewhat using your hands, then continue the cutting downward through the backside of the breast till the two halves part. 

The backside of the breast skin should be your final hurdle and it is best to move over to a regular sharp butcher knife at that point, as cutting through the breast skin with a serrated knife can leave a jagged appearance. Clean up the halves, plucking out stray guts on the inside, remove any large flaps of loose fat hanging out the backside and any remaining feathers. Pay close attention to residual feathers on the wings, tail, and the bottom of the legs.

Next step is to dislocate the thigh joints. This joint area is the last place to get fully cooked on a chicken and dislocating the thigh joint helps the area get done quicker and more uniformly. This thigh dislocation is easily done by hand, just grab a half with both hands and put your thumb on the thigh joint. Push gently on the joint with your thumb and pivot the leg quarter till you feel it pop out of place. Be just a like a human with a dislocated hip. Wash the halves with clean water and get ready to bag. I know a few folks who try to cook whole chickens then split them after cooking. This is not a good plan as cooked chickens are very hard to split cleanly. 

III. Then you puts the chicken in a sack 

Next step is to place the chicken in a bag and get ready to pour on the soak.  There are two basic strategies for the bagging operation with both being described below:

Strategy 1- this is the easiest and cheapest, which simply entails double bagging with 2 "non-deodorized" tall kitchen garbage bags. Arrange the chicken halves in the bags skin side down so no sharp bones are pressing against the sides or bottom. Next dump on the soak and force as much air out of the bag as possible. Tie a knot in the top of the bags and stick them in an ice chest with ice. When you get done use the bags for trash. 

Strategy 2 - This for the more finicky among us. It involves pre-bagging in
Jumbo 2-gallon zip lock freezer bags. Place 2 chicken halves in each bag then pour one-half the soak over each. Seal the bags then place them into a garbage bag as with strategy 1. Be sure and give the soak a few shakes in between pours so the ingredients stay mixed. 

A common problem with Strategy 2 is the freezer bags often come open at the seal, spilling the soak into the trash bag and reverting you back to Strategy 1. Seems easier to me to stick with Strategy 1 from the start. 
Plus, those 2-gallon freezer bags are sometimes hard to find and are always expensive when you do find them. Some folks claim eating food which has been in a trash bag isn't healthy, but it's never killed me and I've ate a bunch of it:)  

IV. Then you soaks the chicken (brining, marinating, and injecting)

While I'm sure un-soaked chickens have won many a cook off, in my experience it's hard to get a winning chicken without getting some flavor on the inside of the chicken. Surface applications of various dry spices/rubs rarely get much flavor past the skin, that's why I like brining or marinating. 

I realize many cooks inject their chickens with good success, and I've done it myself on numerous occasions. I don't personally like the procedure, as injecting tends to leave "needle tracks" in the meat and it's hard to distribute the seasonings evenly. I stick with brining or marinating. Do have a cute story from a cooking pal who had his chicken so puffed up by injecting it the beast exploded when one of the judges tried to cut into the thing. He still claims to have the only exploding chicken on record. 

Without taking time to bore you with the science behind brining and marinating will say both produce good tasting , juicy chicken if done properly. Which of the two is best is a matter of debate and is dependent on how you plan to cook. We have won with each and also lost with each, so you pays your money and takes your chances as the old adage goes. 

Below are recipes for brining and marinating. Give both methods a try and see which one you like best. For those who insist on slow cooking their chickens, brining is by far a better choice than marinating. Marinated chickens do not tolerate slow cooking in the least, tending to dry out rapidly. Brining is a much more forgiving medium and will normally result in a decent chicken no matter how bad you torture them in the cooking process. I currently brine exclusively. Feel free to tweak either of these recipes to suit yourself, will assure you it won't hurt my feelings, but will also assure you both have won with the ingredients and proportions as listed below: 

Bigwheel's Prize Winning Chicken Brine

1-gallon hot water
1 cup canning/pickling salt
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup Mild Molasses, Honey, or Maple Syrup
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 T. Fresh Ground Black Pepper 
2 T. dried minced onion
2 T. granulated garlic 
2 Bay Leaves (crumbled)
2 T. whole black peppercorns 
2 t.  Mixed Italian Seasoning  

       

Put everything in a glass jug and fill it up with hot water.  Put on the lid and shake it good several times to get the dry ingredients mixed. If you have the time let brine set at room temperature for a few days to give the spices some time to blend. Shake it up a time or two each day.  Day or two before the big day stick the jug in the ice box and get it ice cold and keep it cold until your ready to use it. Pour the cold brine over your bagged chicken halves right before you put them in the ice chest. Getting the brine ice cold is terribly important or else your bird will suck up too much salt. Let the chicken soak in the brine for at least 8 hrs. No need to rinse the chicken before cooking. One gallon is enough for brining 4 chicken halves. 

Bigwheel's Prize Winning Chicken Marinade

2 16 oz. Bottles Kraft Seven Seas Viva Italian Salad Dressing (no subbing)
1  cups Brown Sugar
1 cup Soy Sauce
 cup Worcestershire Sauce 
2 T. Dry BBQ Rub (Old Bay or some other good tasting rub will work)

Mix up and dump on bagged chicken halves. Place in ice chest. Marinate no longer than 8 hrs. If you let it go more than 8 hrs. it starts to get mushy.   Shuffle the bag occasionally to expose all surfaces equally. This amount is just about right for 4 halves.

V. Then you cooks the chicken

In my opinion the key to a winning chicken lies heavily in the cooking, that's why this section is so long. While I have seen a few "low and slow" typical smoked chickens in the winner's circle, it hasn't been very often. Most winning chickens are cooked hot and fast because cooking quickly preserves moisture. Slow cooking promotes loss of moisture and "usually" doesn't win.
 
I say dry chickens don't usually win but the fact is sometimes they do. Every once in a while you will run into a group of redneck judges (mainly in the Fort Worth Stockyards:) who don't know what a good chicken is supposed to taste like, been eating it dry as a bone all their lives, and if it's got any juice left in it they will think its raw. Forgetting the few exceptions to the rule, the odds are in your favor with a hot, fast, and moist strategy. 

Winning chicken not only needs to cook so quick the poor chicken's eyes are still blinking when you take it off the fire, but this has to be done with as little turning over as possible, preferably none. Each turn of the chicken, which lands it skin side down on a hot grate, is an opportunity to either burst the skin or to put some unappetizing grill marks on it which will reduce its chances to win. A winning chicken needs to not only taste good but also be pretty to the eyes. 

The solution to these several problems lie in a cooker, which will not only generate high heat, ideally 350-450, but which will also project the heat upwards from the bottom and down from the top at about the same rate, so the chicken will cook evenly on both sides without having to be turned skin side down on the grate.

In addition this ideal cooker must have some protection from grease flare-ups from the dripping of hot fat and/or flammable marinade into the fire so direct cooking is not a good idea. Now direct cooking makes for a mighty tasty chicken, but when you consider the risks it's not a good plan for competition. If you get it close enough to the fire to get it done quickly the chance of a big grease catastrophe goes up considerably, and if you get it far away enough to prevent flare-ups you're cooking too slow and it's going to run the risk of being too dry. 

Now there are many ways to skin a cat and there are several ways to overcome the problems we have enumerated above. First solution for those with money is to have a competent barbecue educated welder build you a "chicken cooker".  

Chicken cookers are usually smallish charcoal fed grills, with a rectangular shape. They have a shallow drip pan between the charcoal and the cook grate, along with a shallow lid on top. The drip pan catches the drippings and keeps them out of the fire, and the shallow lid forces the heat back down on top of the chicken so it gets brown on top without flipping. It cooks from the top down and the bottom up fairly simultaneous. Don't own one myself but hear you can get one built for 300 bucks or so.  

Second and most economical solution is an R2D2 type water smoker. Bunch of the big boys use these things with the "Brinkmann Gourmet Smoker" being the instrument of choice. You can usually pick these up at Walmart for about 50 bucks. Load up the fire pan as full as it will go with charcoal, add a chunk or two of wood for flavor, put just a little water in the pan (1/4 full or less), and that thing will generate some serious heat plus it will cook fairly evenly from the top and bottom. 

The Gourmet's cheaper black cousin commonly called the ECB (el cheapo Brinkmann) also works fairly well for quick cooking chickens, it's just a little more unhandy to operate. The fire pan on the ECB can only be reached through a small door on the side meaning its very difficult to add more charcoal as the cooking progresses..plus it needs some holes drilled in the firepan so the fire gets air from the bottom. ECB's used to come from the factory with a big hole in the firepan but urban legend has it that some dumb yup burned down his apartment complex when a hot coal fell out of the hole and onto his wooden deck. Now you got to drill a few holes yourself if you want the fire to burn properly. ECB's can usually be found for about 30 bucks at Walmart. 

In my current view..very best R2D2 water smoker for cooking chickens is the top part of the "Brinkmann All-in One-Cooker". That gizmo is basically a  a "stubby" Brinkman Gourmet Charcoal Smoker sitting on top of a propane Turkey Fryer. Use the turkey frying burner for frying turkeys and get your mitts on the top part.  It's considerably shorter than the Gourmet but has the same size fire pan. Will turn out such high heat its sorta scary. I start with the standard amount of water which is 1/4 full. When the water boils off add a little more. You can tell when its out of water by the way it smells. It starts smelling like somethings burning when it runs out of water. Properly rigged for chickens the cooker will spin the built in temp dial way past "hot" and start hitting toward the "cool" and "normal" pegs on the far side of the dial. 

Some folks prefer the Weber Kettle Grills, or the Weber water smoker known as a Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM). Never used either myself but is rumored they can do the high heat and up and down heat distribution very well. Also know some folks who claim the "Old Smokey" grills make decent chicken cookers. 

Whatever cooker you choose, the goal is bring the chicken from raw to cooked in one hour or less preferably without flipping.  Since I usually cook chickens on a water smoker, I put 2 halves on the top rack and 2 halves on the bottom rack. When it comes time to re-heat and apply the glaze I move all the halves to the top rack. 

If you are a stubborn hardheaded person with a big offset cooker who insists on using it for cooking chickens, the best bet is to find the hottest part of the pit (usually on the top rack closest to the firebox). Get the heat as high as it will go, put the chicken on the hot spot and pray a lot. If you must flip the chickens do it early in the game. Start with skin side down and turn skin side up to finish. The closer the chicken is to being done the more apt it is to burst the skin when you turn it skin side down. Not sure why this is, but guarantee it's true. It's fine to move the chicken around a little, swap ends etc., just dont turn it skin side down if you can help it. If you have double racks you might also try placing the chickens on the bottom rack and placing a metal sheet pan or layer of heavy duty tinfoil directly above, which will hopefully force some hot air downwards and onto the chicken. 

I personally have been blessed with a oddly built flat-topped offset trailer cooker, which has a very shallow space between the top grate and the roof of the pit. This design forces the heat downward causing the split chickens to cook somewhat on both sides at once. With the heat jacked up to max it makes a pretty decent chicken cooker. This method might work for you too, so if you haven't already, you might want to check it out to see if your offset might duplicate this process.  It doesn't cook as evenly as the dedicated chicken cookers described above, but will work in a pinch. 

No matter what method you use to cook chickens, chicken is done at  170 internal temp as measured in the thigh. Much lower than the temps mentioned you run the risk of some bloody spots in the thigh joint, which is a guaranteed loser plus a cussing from the judges for trying to give them a case of salmonella. Much higher and you run the risk of drying it out, especially on a marinated chicken. Don't go poking a bunch of holes in the thigh to measure the temp because it will drain some of the juice; gently insert the instant read gauge between the thigh and the torso. Sometimes you don't even have to penetrate the skin to do this. 

VI. Then you smears some sweet stuff on the chicken 

Sweet and "slightly spicy" chickens seem to be consistent winners on the cook off circuit. A glaze will do this for you plus a nice dark colored glaze helps hide any browning problems you might have, so brush on a glaze toward the end of the cooking time (about the last 15 min or so). Here is my favorite chicken glaze. This recipe makes enough for at least 4 chicken halves. Again, tweak it to suit yourself but will assure you it has won as posted below:

Bigwheel's Prize Winning Chicken Glaze

3/4 Cup Tomato based BBQ sauce (Stubbs, Bullseye, Head Country, etc) *
2-3 T. Pure Maple Syrup (Just enough to sweeten it up a litle)


    *(My personal favorite sauce is Head Country Regular http://www.headcountry.com)

VII. Then you quickly finds somebody to eat the chicken 

Timing is vital on chickens. You got to get them done well before turn-in time but also turn them in piping hot and fresh. Not saying how long they will set until some brave person can be recruited to judge the things. Sure possible they may be ice cold at judging time, but it just makes a person feel better to turn in a nice hot chicken. My timing method is not the only way to do it by any means but it works for me and maybe will for you too.  

On Saturday morning haul yourself out of the sack about 7:00 AM and stoke the fire as hot as it will go while having coffee and trying to get over your bad hangover from the night before. Go mooch some Bloody Mary's from your neighbors until the fire starts burning clean. When the fire clears up and the heat peaks take the chickens out of the soak and put them on to cook. When they get to 170 in the thigh and hopefully nice and brown on both sides, wrap them "loosely" in foil and stick them somewhere clean, warm, and safe. Empty ice chest works fine. Always use a long handled egg turner (we call em spatulas in Texas) when moving your chicken. Tongs are good for brisket but can cause busted skin on chickens.  

About 20-30 min before turn-in time get your fire built back up and stick them back on to crisp them up a little. Fire doesn't have to be as hot as the first go round, normal cooking temps will work. If your technique was not good and they don't have the right golden brown color squirt them with a little "Pam" which will help a bunch in giving a nice color. The stuff has some type of natural coloring in it that makes any kind of bird look real appetizing. About 15 minutes before turn in time start brushing on the glaze. I use a long handled basting brush and apply the glaze about 3 times during this time frame. Allow the glaze to burn in just a little. The judges were most likely raised eating their daddy's backyard chickens with burned on "Kraft" barbecue sauce, plus that's how they cook it at home, so you got to give them a touch of what they're expecting.  

As the final minutes until turn in time approaches, drag out the halves and lay them out flat skin side up (I use a large sheet pan lined with foil). Clean them up as good as possible by using a paper towel or fingers to gently wipe away any black chunks of crud, which may have fallen on the skin. Do a double check for feathers, then pick out the nicest looking half or halves and stick it in the turn in tray and deliver it to the judges. 

VIII. This is what you uses to cook the chicken

If your cooking on a water smoker, charcoal and wood chunks are good ammunition. While I dearly love natural lump charcoal and use it a lot for most cooking chores, it's un-uniform shape means it doesn't pack into the firepan of some smaller water smokers very efficiently.  Depending on the size and brand of the lump it can sometimes fail to deliver the high heat you need. I would urge you to experiment with both lump and briquettes in your own cooker and by all means use lump if it produces the correct heat level. If you have a normal sized fire pan and small chunks of a good brand of lump it should work great. Concerning brands of lump, "Ozark Oak" is my favorite. If the lump doesn't burn hot enough to suit you, use whatever brand of briquettes you prefer. Stay away from charcoal starter fluid and any kind of Instant Light Charcoal. That stuff will make your chicken taste like a Petro-Chemical Factory. Use an electric starter, charcoal chimney, or propane torch to start the fire and always wait for the charcoal to catch fire good before adding the chicken. If possible, always add preburning charcoal from a chimney if you need to add charcoal to the fire. For the chunks on a water smoker, Hickory is always a good choice, along with Pecan, Oak, and Mesquite. If your cooking fast enough you shouldn't need but one load of charcoal and 1 or 2 chunks per batch of chicken.  
  
Conclusion

Well that's about all I got to say on the subject of barbecued chickens. 
If I said anything which is unclear, needs clarifying, or if I can be of any help whatsoever, feel free to drop me an email. Good luck, good cooking, and God Bless to you and yours. Hope to see you at a cook off soon, and hope the Mummy doesn't come ringing your doorbell.  

bigwheel

Jeff Wheeler
Shiloh Cookers Fort Worth, TX
uncleshiloh@worldnet.att.net
http://www.geocities.com/uncleshiloh69



 
