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OK did a simple brine with the following

3/4 cup of kosher salt
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1 gallon of water
boiled all till disolved then added 1 large white onion 4 cloves of garlic and one apple all diced. Let brine cool to room temp and then placed a 6.34 lb roster into the brine for 9 hours at 35 degrees. Then took it out dried it off and rubbed with CS spicy chicken and then wrapped in foil and put in the fridge for 5 hours. Off to the smoker with 3oz of apple for 5 hours at 210* with and read 156* bumped it up to 250* for an 90 min then took it out at 167*. Back into the foil for 30 min and then sliced and eat.

Final product.....very tender, very moist but kinda fell apart on the bottom side of the breast along the rib cage. Didnt really taste much other than a pit of spice on the skin and smoke flavor. I thought that I would have noticed more flavor from the brine but I dont really know becuase it was my first. Also the smoke flavor was definitely hickoryish. I have had ribs at a restaurant that had been smoked with apple and tasted very different.

Ideas? Comments? Did I do anything wrong?
Original Post
Hi

Just a guess, but the Hickoryish-ness of the taste might indicate a little too much smoke for your taste. Chicken really soaks up smoke well in my experience so I use only 2 oz for a load of 16 breasts.

On the brine, unless I am mistaken you should be chilling the brine and chilling the chicken before brining. I dump in some ice cubes to cool the brine to as close to freezing as possible. Then I take the chicken cold from the fridge and put it in the brine, then back in the fridge.

Aside from just being for food safety I think it may reduce some of that mushiness you had.

FWIW YMMV etc... Wink

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