Another shot at chicken breasts. Need help with injection

[viper]

last shot at chicken was a dud.  I am planning to push these breasts at 275-290 and get them off asap.  I know dry out is a large concern.  I have them in a brine right now where they are still partially frozen so hoping to brine and thaw? 

Anyway, I was thinking of injecting with an oil and margarine base with a few adds like garlic and onion but wanted to get an opinion on that. 

I was going to glaze at the last 15min of the cook.  I planned to just use my BBQ sauce but open to suggestions there. 

 

[meateater]

Wrap in bacon. 

 

[viper]

Dry yet again but at least this time I got the flavor I was going for.  Nice smokey hickory flavor.  Not real sure how the heck you can keep a breast moist for close to 2 hrs without Da Bacon... 

 

[pops6927]

What internal temp are you bringing them up to?

 

[cliffcarter]

What internal temp are you bringing them up to?

And what are you cooking on?

 

[porked]

The partially frozen part may be a factor.

 

[masterofmymeat]

Wrapping in bacon is a great way to go. I inject the breast until it literally can't

take more. Depending on what flavor I want, I gear the liquid to inject to that.

I've never brined as I don't like salt in large amounts. I'll be doing some breasts

tomorrow as my grocery store is having a BOGO on large breasts, gotta take

advantage of that.

I'll do a step by step if anyone is interested. Hope this helps...James

 

[SmokinAl]

Are they skinless & boneless?

 

[viper]

Cooking on MES30, internal went to 160.  breasts were far from frozen when they went on.  I got them thawed with the brine, then heated my injection to further help. 

I make killer grilled chicken breasts that are just loaded with moisture but really fighting them on the smoker.  I like the taste off the smoker but going to have to figure out the moisture issue. 

One issue I constantly fight with the MES is recovery.  I have to be able to open it to glaze, etc.  Everytime I do that, I have serious pullback of cabinet temp AND meat temp.  On this run, I opened it once for the first glaze.  Meat was up to 155 and pulled back to 148.  Took another 20min to get that back...  Then I decided to just push the meat to full cooked, then glaze knowing that it would kill the temp but was already done. 

I am about to stick a propane burner in there to get temps back.  I realize most say you just don't mess with the MES, set it and forget it but I guess in light of that, I might have the wrong smoker.  I need to be able to glaze, pritz, foil, turn over, etc without drastic set backs.  Putting spares on this morning. 

 

[masterofmymeat]

Ahhh. I'm not familiar with the MES. I absolutely love my offset Char-Broil. When you heat your injection solution, what do you heat it to?

I heat mine only enough to melt the butter slowly then let cool.  Everyone has their own method. I'll see tomorrow as I'm smoking a boatload

of breasts for friends and family. I'm going to be doing several different methods as I now have the grill real estate to smoke lots at a time.

Good luck Viper, let us know how the rest goes...James

 

[jemm]

Quote:

Are they skinless & boneless?

^This.  I tried smoking some skinless breasts awhile ago while I had some drums on and they just completely dried out on me.

Gonna do some skinless on a cedar plank tomorrow though.  Hopefully that imparts enough of a smokey taste so that I don't feel like I'm missing something.
 

 

[sqwib]

I just done a few breast at 225°, and not dry at all actually quite the opposite...extremely moist.

Marinated in Italian dressing.

 

[jemm]

Did they have the skin still on em?

 

[sqwib]

No skin.

 

[rowdyrawhide]

Never smoked boneless skinless chicken breasts, but 2 hrs seems a bit long. not sure though

 

[jirodriguez]

I like Sqwib discovered that you need to go against your intuition on getting moist chicken...... cook it low and slow!

I cook all my chicken (whole, halves, quarters, pieces, breasts, ect. ect.) at 210°-225°, usually with just a rub and they come out very moist and tender. If I brine them they are almost dripping with juices.