Brine and Rub Question

[3 j's b smokin]

After a lot of great advice from everyone, I've decided to try smoking a chicken again this weekend and hopefully avoiding burning the skin. Anyways, this got me thinking about something else. I normally brine my chicken in 1 gallon of water, 1/2 cup of salt and 1/2 cup of sugar. Once it's done in the brine, I rinse it off and then apply my rub. My question for you is should I put 1/2 a cup of my rub in the brine and not put it on the outside of the chicken before it goes on the smoker? Would this give it more flavor and help cut down on the chance of burnt skin?

 

[dasmoker]

Is the skin important to you? When smoking a chicken, unless you transfer to a grill or oven, the skin will come out all soggy and unappetizing anyway. You could give thought to smoking the chicken without the skin. Use the rub and the spritz to make some chicken bark. :)

 

[mballi3011]

I do put other spices in my brine don't go crazy with it I'm not sure if it does anything but I do it anyway. Then I don't rub my chickens and skin gets pretty crisppy. About dark skin It's not burnt it's camelazed remember that. Does your rub have alot of white or brown sugar. If so thats whats burning so reduce the amount of sugar you use.

 

[herkysprings]

Skinless chicken always turns out well for me!

I toss in some bay leaves and beer into my brine, and that works very well. I dont think you'd get as much "rub" flavour as you might think from putting it in the brine.

The brine mainly adds salty flavour and better texture to the meat over complex flavours like the rub. At least that is my experience, adding a few extra flavours to the brine is probably the best way to start (say garlic, or some heat, or beer, etc).

 

[sumosmoke]

The ingredients that make up your brine are basic enough that adding some rub mixture won't hurt at all. The concept of the brine is that the spices get absorbed into the liquid, which in turn get absorbed into the chicken.

When you pull the birds out of the brine, give 'em a good rinse (or else they'll be really salty) and then add some more rub to the outside, and between the skin and the meat. (NOTE: If you don't want as much spice, skip this part about adding rub back on the chicken)

Good luck!

 

[scubadoo97]

This has been my feeling as well. Yesterday I smoked a spatchcock chicken. No time for brining but I did mix some rub with apple juice and injected it all over the chicken. The breast was super moist yet done to 175*.