Competition chicken practice. WITH PICS!

So I have really had my mind set on doing legs, but I really don't want to shoot myself in the foot just cause I think they look cool, and will be a unique entry. Anyone have any thoughts or advise on this?

Just that thighs seem more boring to me since most people do them, but really I guess most people do them cause they score high! Even saying that, I still like the idea of doing the legs for the uniqueness factor. Lately though I think maybe what I might do is to do thighs and also put some breast in the box. I can almost always do a mean breast.

Any advice?

Noboundaries said:

Sounds like you're most interested in winning.  A strong, competitive spirit is always good. 

Thighs are the pork butts of chicken: always moist, forgiving, and hard to screw up.  Everything else on the bird is less tolerant and more unpredictable.  That's the reason folks do thighs.

Consider this: A judge has twenty-five thigh entries in front of him, and one chicken leg entry.  Both are dark meat, but the legs have less meat and more structural parts that can end up in your mouth.  After the judge bites into, say, fifteen thighs, then bites into a chicken leg, what is his/her mouth comparing the taste and texture to?  Thighs or chicken legs?  That's right, thighs. 

Since it is a local competition, will the judges be certified, or merely volunteers?  If volunteers, they may not recognize your chicken pop mastery.

I've watched a lot of BBQ cooking competitions on TV, and the ones who do something to stand out from the crowd seem to win a lot less often than those who stay with the tried and true entries.   

Just saying! 

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They are using KCBS judges, I had actually originally signed up to judge, but decided to go ahead and compete instead.
After they stalled at 10 out of 15 judges, they went ahead and opened it up to non cert, but are taking them like applications and have to include their credentials, so should be pretty experienced pannel.

Did another practice run this weekend, trying out a couple more rub and sauce modifications, and also FINALLY got my skin perfectly bite through.

The two tricks I found in searching and trying different things that did the trick for the skin are A: Do not put any rub between the meat and skin. I think the skin needs to be right on the meat to get the best texture, and most importantly to stay on. B: Trim your meat and re-attach your skin, then let that sit in the fridge for a couple hours or more to give everything a chance to settle back together. No toothpicks or "meat glue" needed... The skin stayed on perfectly without either after that resting period. C: Put a little heap of squeeze butter on the top of the chicken, I think that this bastes down the skin and gets it nice and crispy as the first part of the cook goes:


Basically what I did on this cook was to get my thighs all nicely trimmed, and skin scrapped. I put the skin back on with nothing holding it, then put the chix into the fridge for 2 hours till it was time to start cooking. I smoked the chicken uncovered in the pan for 1 hour at about 300; however, I think I will adjust this to more like 30-45 minutes, because when I went out to the chicken after the hour it was completely done at about 163, with no time left for a wrap or saucing. In this case, I wrapped right when I checked it even though I knew this would make it over-done, cause I still needed to get my sauce ready, and didn't want to skip a wrap altogether.

It was wrapped for about 15 minutes, then I pulled and sauced it, and it stayed on for 10-15 minutes with sauce, and here is the end result:
This was easily the best chicken I've smoked. The skin was perfectly bite-through, and had a nice texture. The bite all the way through the meat was tender and the flavor was great. If I was judging this I honestly would have given it like a 6-7 in texture, and 7-8 in taste, which isn't too bad considering I'm an amateur. That being said, like I mentioned before, I lost a lot of the juiciness due to overcooking. Ultimately the IT when I pulled was at about 178 on average.

I did not inject at all, and really on this one I didn't think I was needed, the smoke flavor was all the way into the meat near the bone, but I am still planning to try injecting a few in the coming weeks now that ive got my skin, rub, sauce, and heat control on the new UDS down, and my trimming mostly comfortable.  

Sauced said:

 
Those thighs look real good, but maybe just a little less sauce.

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Great, thank you for the feedback! I did a dip, then wasn't sure it was enough so I spilled a pit more on top. You're definitely right, now that you said it, I can for sure see not giving that a great score for too much sauce. Next time ill stick to just the dip and call that good.

Ran up another couple batches of chicken this weekend. I've done 2 batches every weekend since February, so im sort of starting to get sick or Chicken, or at least having a hard time telling the difference between the different things I try... Its a strange thing to describe, but in general im actually having a hard time telling if its good or not.

Anyway, I did break it up with more rib practices mixed in (the competition im doing is chicken and Ribs, but my ribs are already solid, so ive been focused on chix), and that helped a bit, but even after doing no chicken last weekend it was back to the same this weekend.

The chicken turned out pretty good this go around, though what I did 3 weeks ago (the last post here) was better overall. I think I have honed the flavors more perfectly here, and the taste was better, but I had chewy pull off skin on most of the bites, and the top layer of chicken was tough. I just got a BBQ Guru in the mail, so I think that will help turn out the more consistent bite result.

Using a home made rub, and ultimately settled (after a pantry and fridge full of BBQ sauce jars) on Blues Hog sauce with some butter melted in with it. My rub has a herb flavor, sort of like something you'd have on rotisserie, but also has some honey powder, paprika for color, ginger, and some turbinado (among other things). I also brushing with some "Texas Bird Bath" to give it some shine, right when I box it.

This batch turned out a bit too saucy (like the others), the ones I did Saturday weren't as saucy, but I didn't snap any pics. Im doing the dip method, and just not shaking enough off I guess. Anyway, enjoy:



I also threw some Johnsonville Cajun Chicken Sausage into the smoker with the chicken. Turned out real tasty:

Alright, so after all of this, I'm just sort of taking a break from chicken thighs for now. The work on these isn't worth the reward, at least in my mind at the moment.

For the next couple comps I think I'm just gonna use Breast, and hope for the best. I know breast is pretty much guaranteed to bomb even if you get it PERFECT, but it is easy to prepare, and it's my least favorite category anyway.

Just burnt out on it, but that may change. I decided at the last comp that I'm just gonna do what I want to do and have fun with it. I started getting too worried and concerned about winning or placing and all of the sudden my fun hobby, which is also like my moment of peace away from the kids and work had become stressful.

I'm just gonna focus on the categories I love doing, and do breast on chicken which I also enjoy cooking.

My thighs on this last comp we're SPOT ON, perfectly tender, juicy tasy and looked great, but I still didn't break the top 5. Judging is too subjective on chicken I think.
Anyway, that's my little rant for the day.

SUPERNAUT said:

Heyo!
I also competed in this little comp and it was our first time in such an event. Had I seen this post earlier I would have stopped by and said Hi since that gold barrel was hard to miss. We ran kettles and took 3rd in chicken, 15th in ribs which put us at 11th overall or so I've been told. Tough competing against that field of Traegers but was stoked to put our thighs that high in the rankings!

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Hey! Nice to see another Utahn on here then. so is your team name "Illstone BBQ"? Your like the first other Utahn I have found on here. I was pretty confused overall on that comp, so I've decided to just sort of move on and pretend it didn't happen. Sounds like they only had a small handful of KCBS certified judges, so I think that some of the inexperience showed through.

For example, the fifth place fib box only had 5 ribs in the box (not the required 6) how did that end up not dead last? Also the ribs in that box looked like they were cut blindfolded. I also tasted the ribs of the team who took 3rd in ribs, and though they had a great flavor and looked pretty good, I couldn't even tear the meat off the bones to eat the things.

I had 1 judge comment that my ribs didn't have enough flavor and one say they were too over flavored, one said they were overcooked and one said they were undercooked... All of the ribs that went in my box came from the same rack. With my chicken, I had I judge say there was too much garlic, well I make my own rubs, and there is 0 garlic in the recipe, and 0 garlic in the sauce I used. I also had 2 judges say my chicken was undercooked, but they all accidentally got up to 190 IT (when you want 165-175).

Just don't let that comp affect any desire to do future comps cause I think it was just a bit of a mess. This is not to say that the winners didn't deserve it, and im not trying to talk bad about any of my competitors, but I just don't think that we had a very well experienced judging panel.  This was only my second competition that I have done, so I also recognize I have a lot to learn, and I don't claim that my meat deserved GC or anything, just that I am really confused at how it all shook down. I took 4th in ribs at a pro competition the week before, and I honestly thought that the ribs I did this week were better than the ones I turned in at the pro event.

We ended up 6th in chicken, 14th in Ribs and 9th overall, so we were about in the same place. Great job on the chicken score, that's the hardest category if you ask me.