Chicken Leg Question

[wildcard]

Evening all,

I have a question on smoking chicken legs (which I've done before problem free). Today I bought eight chicken legs. I rinsed them,pulled back the skin, seasoned, injected and then put on a rack in the fridge for a few hours. I pulled them out to come to room temp, set my smoker to 235 F and put them in once it came to temp, with my Maverick (new, used before worked well). The IT rose to 158 and then sat there...for about 25 minutes. Then, it started DROPPING to 153. This was after 2.5 hours. So now I'm finishing them in the oven, pretty irritated and completely confused what happened. Any insight would be appreciated. I am hangry and while the time was frustrating, when the temp began dropping I threw in the towel.

I'm using an MES 40, had water pan and used apple chips.

Cheers.

**Edit**

The chicken came out fairly well - moist, decent smoke flavor. The seasoning and injection was non existent but that's easy. I'm still curious why the temp stalled and then dropped.

 

[johnmeyer]

One possibility is that it is simply a stall. 158 degrees is when "the stall" usually happens with big hunks of meat like a brisket or pork butt. It is caused by the evaporative cooling exactly offsetting the heat going into the chicken from the hot oven. You don't normally get this with smaller hunks of meat because they don't have as much stored moisture compared to the surface area (a pork butt has very small surface area compared to total volume).

However, it is possible that all that extra moisture from your injection gave your chicken enough additional internal liquid that it stalled.

As you probably know, there are two "solutions" to a stall: wait it out, or wrap the meat in foil. The latter method always works because it completely stops evaporation, but the heat can instantly penetrate the meat (or chicken). The meat temperature usually resumes its normal upward slope within minutes of returning the foiled meat to the smoker or oven. I added "oven" because, once you foil the meat, it won't absorb any more smoke, so you can have the convenience of finishing it inside the house.

 

[mike5051]

That is crazy Wildcard!  I've smoked whole turkeys in less time!  I guess the injection could have caused a stall.  I do smoke my poultry at 275-300 though, better skin texture.  I've never had a chicken or a turkey stall for any considerable length of time.  

Mike

 

[chef jimmyj]

One possibility is that it is simply a stall. 158 degrees is when "the stall" usually happens with big hunks of meat like a brisket or pork butt. It is caused by the evaporative cooling exactly offsetting the heat going into the chicken from the hot oven. You don't normally get this with smaller hunks of meat because they don't have as much stored moisture compared to the surface area (a pork butt has very small surface area compared to total volume).

However, it is possible that all that extra moisture from your injection gave your chicken enough additional internal liquid that it stalled.

As you probably know, there are two "solutions" to a stall: wait it out, or wrap the meat in foil. The latter method always works because it completely stops evaporation, but the heat can instantly penetrate the meat (or chicken). The meat temperature usually resumes its normal upward slope within minutes of returning the foiled meat to the smoker or oven. I added "oven" because, once you foil the meat, it won't absorb any more smoke, so you can have the convenience of finishing it inside the house.

Exactly! Points for a good answer and saving me from all that typing[emoji]128514[/emoji]...JJ

 

[johnmeyer]

Exactly! Points for a good answer and saving me from all that typing[emoji]128514[/emoji]...JJ

Thanks!

 

[wildcard]

Thanks all, I never considered foiling. I've been smoking for what'll be 5 years this summer and I feel like I learn something new every time I throw something on. I'm not sure what caused the chicken leg stall - be it a normal stall, the injection or whatever else.

In the end, they came out with really good smoke flavor but boy howdy was I gettin' hangry.

Cheers.