Brining a bird,,,sumbudy help me!

This might not be the answer you seek:

I've had excellent luck with not brining whole chickens, just washing them out, rubbing on some salt & spices, returning to fridge for a day or so. Cook in 'shack at 225 until falling apart, something like 5 - 6 hours, using 1-2 oz wood.

Cooked this way, they definitely aren't dried out. And when I've brined chicken pieces, the texture has been denser, less falling apart, and almost too juicy for our tastes. Certainly, your tastes may be different.

I do buy the smallest cheapsky whole fryers I can find, 3-3.5#. They're less efficient in terms of meat to bone/skin ratio, but one of them feeds 2 people with lots of leftovers and that's all I need. The small ones seem to be more tender and have less dark yellow fat gobs. Plus, if you eat the skin, it seems thinner and less rubbery. But remember, it won't be at all crispy if it's just smoked. Crispy skin requires an additional step, which I don't bother with myself.

So, if you haven't tried an unbrined whole chicken, you might give it a go and see if you're satisfied. Or, if you've got enough eaters, try one brined and one not.

Iowa Man: I learned how to brine from that roaming rascal, Smokin Okie. He has a brine recipe posted here somewhere, and another one made by Big Wheel. Cold water.(In the fridge!) Overnight. Wash thoroughly before smoking.
All this MUST be buried in the archives. No? All that palaver? Surely it's not lost.

I've got several brine recipes the thing I'm really looking for is time. I spent last night hunting, (look at the time I posted the topic), and found so much different views and opinions on HOW LONG to brine.

I did do some chicken parts unbrined like tjr and had them soaked in Italian Dressing. They were pretty darn good.

I just want to do some whole birds and maybe a big turkey (10-12 lbs.) sometime and I would like to get it fairly right the first time.

I'm not an idiot and not a rocket scientist either but reading out on the web about smoking can be soooo confusing because of so much conflicting information. That's what is so great about this forum is someone can write in that is using the same smoker you are using and say "hey man, this worked for me."

Having a ball with my cookshack!

Iowa Man

A whole turkey can be brined in aprox 24 hours, chickens can be done in 6 to 12 hours.
At what temp do you plan on cooking?
If you are going to cook at a low temp then add TenderQuick to the brine. If your are going to cook at 275 to 350� then no cure is needed.
You can also speed up the process by injecting the brine into the bird and let it set in the frig for 4 to 6 hours.
Jim

I think you'll find that whole chickens take about the same time to cook as quarters from the same size bird, whether brined or not.

Dark meat takes a bit longer to get tender than white, but the low temperature, high humidity cooking ensures that the white meat is still plenty moist even if a bit overdone. In a 'shack, this difference is much less of a problem than it would be on a rotisserie or in a convection oven.

Roasting chickens of 6-8# take a lot longer than fryers. For one thing, they're just plain thicker. For another, they're quite a bit tougher than fryers, almost like turkey, so they seem to need to be cooked longer to be tender enough. The last one I did took 8 or 9 hours to reach a "done" temperature and still didn't seem really well cooked. We prefer chicken pretty well done, where you can carve it with a spoon and a fork.

Other than for the festive look of a big bird at the table, personally I don't think I'd bother with roasters too many more times. The little fryers just seem to cook better, are usually cheaper, and because they have more surface area per weight, pick up more spice and smoke flavor.

Most frozen turkeys are already brined by injecting. Maybe somebody will discuss whether or not they'd brine them more. Or perhaps everyone's using "natural" turkeys?

I did a chicken last night and my wife said it was the best thing we've done. I tend to believe the chops and tenderloin were pretty darn good! However I didn't brine the chicken which was 3 lbs + I just did the mayo thing on the outside and used some CS chicken rub and put it in the smoker for 3 hours. 2 1/2 hours at about 210 and then bumped it up to 250. I used apple, about 2.5 oz's and it was very good.

Thanks for the input and the help. Experimentation mean it's not a science.

Kevin

I smoked a chicken that was packed in solution and I rub it inside and out. Then put a onion and apple inside. It had a lot of flavor but to tuff and stringy It was done by the temp. I know I want buy chicken in a solution any more and buy smaller ones.

Iowa Man: Sounds like you've achieved that highest of culinary accomplishments - a dish your spouse enjoys!

I don't know that experimentation makes cooking less of a science - applying scientific methods to experimentation would build one's knowledge, just might not necessarily make a great dish. Cooking seems to be a science in that applying certain processes to certain materials gives more or less predictable, reasonable results. But it's an art in that reasonable results aren't always as good as unreasonable ones!

Iowa Man, while you're trying chicken methods, don't forget Chicken on a Throne (Drunken Chicken). Extremely effective recipe. And fun to boot!

I hope in your search on the internet, you came across my Brining 101:

Brining 101

Does this help any?

You got it Smokin. I printed it off earlier this week. Sometimes I flood myself with info and don't know where I was and where to look to find it again so I created a word doc. and will copy and paste stuff to that. Helps a lot!!!

Also a bit of humor.

I took my smoker on vacation a couple of weeks ago. My wife was ribbing me last night, and I never really thought of it, but when I was on vacation I would go to campers that I got to know a little and tell them " I'm going to be smoking some stuff tonight so if you want to run into town and get something to smoke your more than welcome to join me." My wife said I got more than a few stares. I didn't even think about it till she joked with me about it last night. Lucky I didn't end up in jail.

Thanks for all the help with my chicken. I'm getting my feet wet with this forum and really enjoying it like my smoker.

Kevin

quote:

" I'm going to be smoking some stuff tonight so if you want to run into town and get something to smoke your more than welcome to join me."

Way cool, Iowa Man. You sound like Tom's friends from the Melbourne beach...where they catch square groupers.

(I know a lady who know's a lady who had her collar bone broken at the mouth of the Suwannee when a Cessna pilot of unknown origin dropped a bail of dope on her, thinking she was the recipient. Because she was waving a friendly hello to him.)

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Glad to be of help Iowa Man, hope we're not overwhelming you with info.

Many times I think we over-think and over-analyze Q.

Here's how I do it...just go smoke it. Keep good notes, try new things, smoke some more...you'll be the judge. There really isn't too much too this once you get the basics down. After that, it's just working on technique, rubs, mops, flavors, etc.

Smokin'

I have brined whole turkeys before smoking, had excellent results. Brining definitely helps the flavor and consistency of the meat.
For the best results, buy fresh turkeys instead of frozen. Costs extra money but it is worth every penny in improved quality.
Brining has its pitfalls on alternate cooking methods. brining a fried turkey will impart excellent flavor to the meat, but because of the sugar in the brine it will make the skin turn black when cooked and lose some of the asthetic appeal. Same is true of a chicken going on a rotisserie, brined bird will turn black. On the smaller chicken it also has a negative impact on taste when the skin burns.

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin:
I did a chicken last night and my wife said it was the best thing we've done. I tend to believe the chops and tenderloin were pretty darn good! However I didn't brine the chicken which was 3 lbs + I just did the mayo thing on the outside and used some CS chicken rub and put it in the smoker for 3 hours. 2 1/2 hours at about 210 and then bumped it up to 250. I used apple, about 2.5 oz's and it was very good.

Thanks for the input and the help. Experimentation mean it's not a science.Kevin

Kevin,

I don't know if you still read or participate in this forum but I wanted to say that I tried your chicken method today and was very happy with the results.

I had been looking for a chicken method that would produce a result similar to my old smoker and this is it.

Not to say that it is better than anyone else's method, or that I want this result every time, but I wanted to be able to cook chicken in my CS like I did with my old smoker.

Thanks,

SmokinMAINEiac

well, that post is only 8 years old.

Congrats for finding on that old, that's WAY back there.

You could send Kevin a PM, don't know if he still reads. I'm sure he'd be flattered for an post from that far back.

I've been teaching the mayo trick for a long time. I hate mayo, but when I took a class and learned to do my own and found out it was mostly oil, well DING when the light and I do chicken in mayo too.

If it came out that good, you should also try using a white sauce as a 'BBQ sauce'. There's probably a recipe on this site but I've used Big Bob Gibson's White Sauce and it really compliments the chicken. Give it a try!

Thanks Q. Almost ordered a bottle a couple weeks ago to try it, but couldn't justify the shipping, which doubled the price. This recipe will work just fine.