Yesterday I tried my first Spatchcock chicken and it didn't turn out as my other birds have in the past. Normally I am a beer butt chicken guy and I love how juicy they come out and how wonderful the skin tastes. This time I wanted to try and run the smoker at a little higher temp to try and get the skin just a little more crispy but the end result was very dry/leathery skin that you couldn't even eat because it was so dried out and there was no way you could rip it off to eat a piece. The inside meat was very nice and juicy but the skin was really bad. I ran the smoker at 275 the whole smoke (around 2.5 hours) until the internal temp reached 165-170 then I pulled it off and tented it under foil until I got things cleaned up. In the past I have smoked my chicken at around 225-250 then maybe kicked the heat up to around 300-325 for the last 30 minutes to crisp up the skin a bit but I was looking for a bit more crisp this time but it backfired.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
My thinking was I need to go back to smoking at 225-250 and then just kick it up even higher at the end 325-350 to crisp up the skin or just smoke it at 325-350 the whole time like I use to on the grill.
One more thing to add is this bird has been in my freezer for several months. Any chance the skin was compromised because of the long freezer time? I didn't really think so because I have smoked many turkeys with great skin that have been in the freezer for an extended period of time.
Here are some pics.
All rubbed up with some Garlic & Herb, Old Bay, Pepper and a touch of salt.
All finished and ready to carve.
Here is a side shot.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
My thinking was I need to go back to smoking at 225-250 and then just kick it up even higher at the end 325-350 to crisp up the skin or just smoke it at 325-350 the whole time like I use to on the grill.
One more thing to add is this bird has been in my freezer for several months. Any chance the skin was compromised because of the long freezer time? I didn't really think so because I have smoked many turkeys with great skin that have been in the freezer for an extended period of time.
Here are some pics.
All rubbed up with some Garlic & Herb, Old Bay, Pepper and a touch of salt.
All finished and ready to carve.
Here is a side shot.