Figured this would be a good place to ask. Has anyone had any success smoking boneless skinless chicken breast I've tried a couple of times and always come out very tough and rubbery even after a brine and when I did the brine it came out very salty.
Yeah I've had plenty of success doing them.
I brine them BUT in my opinion you have to do an equilibrium brine to get it right.
An equilibrium brine is where you weigh the meat and write the number down.
Figure how much water you need to brine the chicken in your container and figure out that weight (1gallon = roughly 8pounds/128ounces/3628.74mg).
Add the meat weight and the water weight and take 1.75% of that weight and that is how much salt you need to dissolve in the water.
Salt weight = 0.0175 x (meat weight + salt weight).
You do that and you are good to go. If u want less saltiness then reduce to like 1.5% (0.015).
You can never get too salty if u do it this way and you can let it brine for days and never worry about saltiness.
When you are ready to smoke them then smoke them at like 250F temp or whatever temp u like to get as much smoke flavor as you like. Take them to 165F internal temp and pull them. May people take to like 163F and let temp carry over but individual breast pieces may not carry much so I dont think it hurts to pull at 165F.
You do this and u are good to go my friend :)