Strange smoking results with chicken

[chefsebby]

Okay so I'm an experienced chef, but a beginner smoker. Did some chicken tonight and had some weird results and not sure what to make of it. I will be as detailed as possible below to make this easier on everyone.

I'm using a small Rival electric smoker, it can fit about a whole chicken and not much more. Pellets inside with about 1/2 cup of water in the dish.

I turned the smoker on and let it go for about 30ish minutes, when i checked the temp inside it was around 260-270 so i threw my chicken in there, they took up all of the space of the cooking area.

About 1.5 hours later I removed them and was very disappointed. They seemed "dirty" instead of smoked. Like they look almost covered in soot. Also, some were darker than others, some seemed like they hardly got any color to the skin.

I removed those and went to smoke my next project which was some ground beef. I also had one drumstick that wouldn't fit in the last batch so I threw it in there. About an hour later I had the most amazing drumstick ever. The color was beautiful, the skin was rendered and the flavor was perfect. When I looked at the oven thermometer inside it said it was only about 170-180 in there at the time.

I've attached a picture to help with this as well.
Chicken 1 & 2 are from that first smoke session. 1 shows the light color to the skin and 2 shows a darker color, but also the dirty/sooty look to it
Chicken 3 is the one that came out as I wanted it to.

To me, this obviously seems like a temp issue. With the first batch, did I throw them in when it was too hot and the smoke was too much?

Thanks for any advice,
Sebastian

 

[SmokinEdge]

My guess is hot spots in the cooker. May need to rotate the meat during the cook. It’s a common issue with small cookers. I say this because 1 and 2 were completed in the same cook.

 

[noboundaries]

Not all smoke is good smoke. The initial ignition of pellets, chips, or chunks is filled with ash and particulates. Eventually the wood products carbonize enough to release the desired flavor elements. Your result on the second drumstick is proof.

Some smokers can be ready to load meat in as little as 15 minutes. Most take longer until you see a nice thin blue smoke. Gray or white is bad.

Skin-on chicken likes high heat. I really can't address the difference you saw in the oven temp with the results you got.

Happy smoking!

Ray

 

[chopsaw]

The initial ignition of pellets, chips, or chunks is filled with ash and particulates. Eventually the wood products carbonize enough to release the desired flavor elements.

Agree , and would say this was some of your trouble . If the chicken was wet on the surface , it would make the effect of the fire not being ready worse . More of the bad smoke sticks to the wet surface .

 

[Brokenhandle]

Do you have a pic of the smoker you used? Curious as what it has for the exhaust vent. And as chopsaw mentioned...you want the skin to be dry. At those temps you will be hard pressed to get good crispy skin. Maybe another issue is the addition of water pan.

Ryan

 

[Brokenhandle]

Should have mentioned...welcome to the forum! Stop over in roll call and introduce yourself!

Ryan

 

[thirdeye]

Yep, uneven heat, bad smoke and I'm thinking too little draft. I also don't buy into adding chips or pellets to a pan of water (or soaking wood chunks before using them). I'll bet if you had wiped your chicken with a moist paper towel after the first 20 minutes you would have seen smudges of smoke.

Your pit temp was right. Smoke should smell good to you, so a good test is to simply take a whiff, or sniff around the vent. If it stings your nose or your eyes it's too heavy. You might experiment with dry wood, and using smaller amounts than the manufacturer recommends. A family pack of chicken drumsticks is cheap enough to play around with.

We're on the same page as far as drumstick #1, it looks great. I shoot for this color and skin tenderness (and my internal temp is well above 185°) on my drumsticks.