Michael Rothman asked:
Noticed in Brining 101 that Smokin'posted a note from someone who used a brine of Tender Quick and water.
Have decided to try my hand at some half chickens and have lots of questions.
Among them...
Do you leave the skin on? Most Qed chicken I've eaten has skin on and it's not very good. If you leave it on do you torch it or grill it to crisp the skin?
The question here will be which cut of chicken are you using and is it susceptible to drying out? We usually leave the skin on, smoke it and then take the skin off (but not always, gotta have fat sometimes) The CS, because it stays so humid, will do a great job. But sometimes, it's so moist when it comes out, we throw it on the grill for a couple of minutes to crisp the skin. If you do this, undercook the chicken 5 or 10 degrees, because it will continue to cook on the grill.
Can you smoke it with skin off or does the skin contribute to self-basting?
yes, you can smoke with the skin off, but I would brine if you do, it will dry out if not watched close
Is "plain" Tender Quick a suitable brine? that's what it does, but why not add some spices and flavoring. Because of osmosis, the salt water replaces the moisture inside the chicken
Can you simply put the chicken halves into zip-lock bags, or need they be floating in the brine?
either, I usually do a large quanity of chicken in a roasting pan, put the pan in the fridge, let sit overnight. Zip-locks are fine
More later...
okay
Smokin Okie
Thanks & Regards, Mike
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Original Post
I've found that if I'm just doing fowl,now that wev'e got them new-fangled ice boxes down here in FL and I'm not trying to preserve it, we cut out some of the problems by ommitting the curing salts from the brine and just go ahead and eat those rascals...They never seem to stay around that ol' icebox long enough to get funny and seem to taste pretty good. 