I've only done thighs a few times and my boss wants me to bring my FE100 to work and fill it with chicken halves. Any advice on how to turn out the juiciest chicken halves with crispy skin would be most appreciated. Thanks.
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Hey Kerry
I have yet to do chicken and I am very intrested in the post. I have read that the cooker does not crisp up the birds- most people finshed on the grill or blasted in the convection oven.
cheers,
Kenny
I have yet to do chicken and I am very intrested in the post. I have read that the cooker does not crisp up the birds- most people finshed on the grill or blasted in the convection oven.
cheers,
Kenny
you could try the old tried and true italian dressing marinade overnite. drain,hit with rub while your fec is set at 400. put them in. should take around 35-45 mins. hit them with the glaze and back in for about 10 mins.
word of warning. i set my fec on fire doing this. i have learned to put a french fry grid into a disposable aluminum pan and then chicken goes on top of the grid. no fire worries since then.
jack
ps. for large production work you might consider smoking them for about 2 hours in the 145-165 range,take them off and chill.next day crank the fec after cleaning it to max and going until you just hit 160 in the thigh. improves the smoke taste a bundle plus you can do rotational cooking to keep your production run up. the soke method will impart a good smoke taste to them. it is my experience that an fec running in 350 or over range imparts no smoke flavor. this also explains why we use it for baking biscuits. no customer has ever remarked upon a smoked taste to these or breads when temps are in the 350 plus range.
word of warning. i set my fec on fire doing this. i have learned to put a french fry grid into a disposable aluminum pan and then chicken goes on top of the grid. no fire worries since then.
jack
ps. for large production work you might consider smoking them for about 2 hours in the 145-165 range,take them off and chill.next day crank the fec after cleaning it to max and going until you just hit 160 in the thigh. improves the smoke taste a bundle plus you can do rotational cooking to keep your production run up. the soke method will impart a good smoke taste to them. it is my experience that an fec running in 350 or over range imparts no smoke flavor. this also explains why we use it for baking biscuits. no customer has ever remarked upon a smoked taste to these or breads when temps are in the 350 plus range.
Replied to the same post, over in the FE owners forum. For "juiciest" you know me, I'd brine.
I am a new FEC user so I am not an authority on these things, but I just did 40 1/2 chickens in my FE and they came out great. I put a little rub on them and loaded up. temp was set at 325 but never got there. Cooked mostly at 165 to 185 until the very end which was about 2 plus hours into the cook. Also I rotated the racks top to bottom about half way through. At the very end I sauced them and let them rest in there until the sauce set. One thing I did when I pulled them out was to MAKE SURE THEY WERE ALL COOKED TO 170. Reason is they were different in size and I found some that needed more time then others rotating the racks helps. Also try and load the racks with the same size looking pieces to help with having some finished on the rack and others not . I used a thermometer to do a quick check and found a bunch that were around 150 or so and some that were 175 to 185. The skin was crisp and the meat even the breast meat was juicy and had a great light brown color. Everyone loved the chicken. I was worried about grease fires but didn't have any. I have a remote thermometer that I used to monitor the temps and set it to alarm if there was a temperature spike. Also was watching the smoke out put.