One thing that a competition BBQ team needs each time out, is to have a consistent cook.  Getting your name called in a category is fun, but everyone there wants to hear their name called last. You don’t have to win all four categories, but just have a strong cook in all. I was doing well in the pork & rib categories, but struggled in the chicken & brisket categories, I think it is these cuts of meats that most home cooks do not have experience with. Coming from the backyard into cooking competition BBQ, I had never cooked a brisket till I was in my first competition…we did not come in DAL, but…enough said. Chicken on the other hand, everyone has cooked chicken at some point in their lives, but cooking to competition standard…now that’s a different story. To many, chicken is the arched enemy of BBQ teams, there are many steps that need to be followed to achieve results that will please the judges. The procedure to get your chicken to that point, can be quite time consuming, some folks take longer then others, I have spent 5 hours prepping chicken for a competition, but of course, as time went on the more beer I drank, the more socializing I was doing, well you get the picture.

I try to do a chicken practice cook, when ever I can, and chicken is one meat that my family still enjoy, with practice comes results, I am probably most proud of our first place chicken award at our last competition. This was our first call EVER for chicken, backyard or pro, we got RGC at the event, but I keep telling everyone about our first place chicken!!!

Work paid off

Our take for the day in St Cloud, FL.

Sweet!!!

I was happy with where we were going with our chicken, but I still had to try it again, just to make sure it was not by accident that we did so well in chicken, you can do the exact same procedures each time your out at a competition, and come home with different results each time. I want to do everything I can on my end to give the judges something to work with, if they score me down from what I turn in, at least I know that I have done everything I could have done. A couple of weeks ago I was taking, online, with a friend of ours here at Hogs Gone Wild BBQ, C-Dub’s BBQ Rub.

Great folks, check them out!!!

I have not had the opportunity to check out their great rubs, but I plan on doing it very soon, but I hear it is GREAT on chicken. Anyway, C-Dub’s and I were taking about chicken prep, online, and it got the urge to do a practice cook going again for me. C-Dubs and I exchanged a couple of ideas, then it was off to the drawing board. Thanks C-Dub’s!!!

I will be happy to share how I prepare my competition chicken with everyone, most things here can be found, more in depth trough out the internet, this is just a basic guide to do a couple of things that I feel are necessary to create competition style chicken. I will not be able to share certain, “proprietary” secrets, and flavoring will need to be something that everyone should do to their liking, but I did give you a good hint above!!! (Another hint…I do not use muffin pans!!!)

Let’s begin, I always cook thighs, white meat is fun to try out and experiment with, I have even thought about wings, but I always come back to thighs. There are many teams that have used wing, with good results, I’m just happy to get the thighs where I like them. Thighs stay juicy and have a good flavor, I do not take the bone out. I started off by cutting the “knuckle” joint off, but I have decided to stop doing that, I do not like the way the bone is exposed on the end piece.

Chicken straight from the package.

I look for the package of chicken, that has the most uniformed pieces, the skin looks good & does not have any discolorations. Some chicken skin will appear to be yellow, I try to stay away from those brands, I want the skin to be as white as possible.

I take special measures with chicken, I store it sepetate from all other meats, I use different cutting boards & work ares designated just for my chicken. The first thing I do is wash the chicken, then I take the skin completely off the piece of chicken. I just pull it off, some folks say it is better to cut it off, but I like to preserve as much skin as possible. I trim the fat from each side of the chicken, and make the piece nice and uniformed shape.

Keep all the skin for use later.

From the under side of the thigh, there is a small loose piece of meat, commonly referred to as the “oyster”, I always remove this piece. When a judge bites into the piece of chicken, this could put the flavor off, and has a strange texture after cooking, best to just remove it.

I

The "Oyster" take it off.

After I cut off the oyster, I want to take care of a problem that gets many teams disqualified at the competitions, taking out the blood vein, (that’s what I call it, i don’t know the official name for it). This vein can be full of blood, even after washing the chicken thoroughly. The chicken can cook to temperature, but this vein can hold the blood, when bitten into, it will flow out, as if the chicken is under cooked, and we all know what comes from bloody chicken…disqualification!!!  I norally find this vein near the bone, I will go in with my knife and work it along the bone, using the backside of the knife, if you use the sharp side of the knife, you’ll just cut through the vein. Use the backside of the knife, and pull the vein out as far as you can then cut it at each end. There is  some extra work doing this, but it is better then having your box returned to you at the competition with a DQ.

This vein is normally near the bone.

This could mean the diffence between D.Q. and 1st place.

I want my piece to be a nice uniformed piece of chicken, I take off as much fat as I can. Normally end up with a heart shaped thigh.

I will place the thighs only, keep the skins off to the side and cold, into a zip-lock bag for marinating. There are many commercial marinates and chicken soaks on the market, if you have a favorite, please continue to use them, I use Italian salad dressing. Yes it is true, Italian dressing makes a good marinate for chicken, the oils and vinegar works well on the chicken, and gives good flavor. I will try to have my chicken in the marinate over night. Please be sure to rinse all the marinate off your chicken before cooking.

Now I turn my attention to the skin. Skin on the chicken is another BIG issue. even before the judge is able to taste the bite he/she had just taken, they evaluate if there is, what is known as “bite through skin”. The last thing you, as a competition BBQ cook wants, is for the judge to take that bite of chicken, and the entire skin comes off in that one bite. The judge was not able to bite through the skin cleanly. Smoking/grilling chicken, can lead to tough and rubbery skin, not a good thing to have on any chicken, mostly your turn-in chicken, one of the best ways to insure that does not happen, you need the skin to be a thin as possible. All the fat from the underside of the skin MUST come off.  This does take some doing, and I would suggest doing some practice, before going to a competition. This will be something you will need to master, and not many folks will get it right on the first try. There are a couple of ways to achieve this, some like to scrape the skin, I like to use a thin filet knife, and cut the fat off.

Cutting the fat off the underside of the skin.

Skin has to be so thin, there' only one side!!! lol

Now I wrap the skin back onto the thigh, keeping everything as tight as possible, and place the thigh on your rack for cooking. As far as seasoning, and some special cooking techniques, there are so many out there, I will leave this up to you to decide which is best suited for you and your team.

All lined up and ready to cook.

I cook thighs at 275 degrees for at least 1 hour & 45 mins. For chicken you are looking for an internal temperature of 178-182 degrees. DO NOT UNDER COOK YOUR CHICKEN!!! When the chicken is at the point where I am satisfied that it is done, temp is good, and only clear juices coming out of thigh, I will then dip the entire piece into my sauce and place back on the grill for another 15 mins at 300 degrees.

No secret about my sauce of choice, I use Draper's, period!!!

Pull the chicken off the grill and let rest.

I think we have a couple of useable pieces here.

Test your product!!!

Now that's what I mean by "Bite Through Skin"

We made a mock box for your practice cook, it is not an official box, actually is the top of a serving plate. The competitions we enter are Florida Barbecue Association events, and they do not allow garnish of any kind.

Not bad!!!

I hope this has helped answer a couple questions about chicken, trust me, you never stop learning. Fell free to add comments, or to contact me at www.hogsgonewild.com Thanks for your interest.

Today we bring to you deep dish pizza, puff pastry style!!!

We start out with our 12″ cast iron pan and we greased it with the spanish olive oil shown in the above pic.  We then spread the puff pastry to to match the pan’s diameter.  The second ingredient we added was the cheese.  We used both cheddar and fresh mozzarella cheese.  We placed this cheese in the freezer for 1hr prior to applying it because at that temperature, it makes the shredding easier.  Another purpose of lying the cheese down first is, it protects our dough from the water that our next ingredient is full of….Tomatoes.  We sliced our tomatoes and added fresh basil, garlic powder, oregano and hot pepper seeds to the sliced pieces.  We then drizzled some olive oil over the tomatoes.  Once our smoker reached 375 degrees, we placed the pizza on.  After 40min our pizza was done and as you can see below, we were happy with the results!!!  You may ask why did it take the smoker so long at that temp for the pizza to be done.  The cast iron pan can take 10-15min. to get to temp itself.  Once that gets going then everything else follows.  Enjoy!!

Carrie and I have been testing various BBQ Turkey recipes for the better part of two weeks.  At last count, we experimented with eight different  iterations of classic BBQ turkey in an effort to determine which might work best with the most common side dishes that find their way onto the Holiday table.

Through this quest, we’ve discovered one solid truth.  We shouldn’t make the bird taste like our competition chicken. Our initial thought, and first trial, was to impart the intense flavor that only competition grade rubs and brine could accomplish. We certainly got amazing turkey…that paired with absolutely nothing on the table.  In fact, the super charged contest quality turkey almost made the usually flavorful gravy, mashed potatoes, veggies and stuffing taste at best…bland.

The tests afterward soon had us searching for the most important aspect of any good turkey – moist and juicy white meat. Soon enough we had a winner. A BBQ Turkey that would go with nearly any side dish one could imagine. We took what we learned and taught a class on it at our Green Leaf BBQ Shop last Saturday.  This recipe is dead basic, but it absolutely works and will deliver time after time. Give it a try!

Brine Recipe:

1 Gallon of Water

12-14 lb. Turkey (Select a Natural bird with no existing brine or enhancements)

8 oz.  Santa Maria Style BBQ Rub (Garlic, Salt, Pepper base) our favorites became Blue Star Seasonings and The Rub Co.

8 oz. Light Brown Sugar

Mix these together until the solids dissolve. Submerge the cleaned and prepared Turkey in a 5 gallon bucket or a stainless stock pot. Add water to the container to cover the turkey completely. Orient the Turkey with its breast side down.  Refrigerate for 12 hours. Agitate the brine at least once during this process. After 12 hours – remove and dry the Turkey. Set the bird on a large cookie sheet or similar for seasoning.

Seasoning Blends:

Cavity: Use your brine base again – Blue Star or The Rub Co. “Santa Maria Style”.  Take special care to season the underside of the breast and thigh areas inside the cavity.

Skin: We coated the now dry turkey skin with a light olive oil. This helped the seasoning stick.  We used a Honey Based BBQ Rub like Butcher’s or a Pecan Rub like John Henry’s. This not only gave a very nice traditional flavor, but wonderful color.

Time: 13-15 minutes a pound – unstuffed.

Temperature: 325F

Done Temp: Breast 160F – 165F. Any higher and you risk dryness.

Fuel: Oak lump charcoal & Wine Infused Oak smoke wood.

Special Tools: Roasting Throne

Cooker: Big Green Egg

Notes: The turkeys that we cooked on a vertical throne were cooked both more evenly and somewhat quicker than a traditional roasting rack or “back down” arrangement. Please add a few minutes of cooking time if you aren’t using a throne.  Temps higher than 350F will sometimes render the skin too completely and splits will form in the skin late in the cook.

Best of Luck this Thanksgiving!

-Tim Bryan, Green Leaf BBQ

www.greenleafbbq.com

A cast iron skillet can be used in many ways today and here we use one to make a one pot meal. With a 12″ skillet a 4 lb chicken a host of veggies we start out to make a bbq feast. We add a few chunks of cherry and oak wood for flavor.

We started out with a 4 lb whole chicken raised patted dry .  We seasoned inside a out with bohemian spice salt that jr picked up in the bahamas while on his honeymoon.  We then went for our cast iron skillet which we greased with EVOO.  We placed the chicken in middle and around the bird we adddc yukon gold potatos, red peppers, onions, brussle sprouts and mushrooms that were seasoned with the same spice used on the chicken. We brought our smoker up to 300 degrees.  Two and a 1/2 hrs later, we had our perfectly cooked chicken and veggies now mixing with the chicken fat veggies were excellent. Even jr liked the veggies cooking in the chicken fat with the island spices.  We took our favorite bbq sauce and added a little butter and some mango jam from the islands into a pot and brought it to a simmer.  We then glazed the chicken at the end. The One pot meal included memories of the island flavors yet it was also just plain tasty.

Today the panel discuss Kingsford going light on the charcoal but promising the same burn.  We also go into Kiwi Knives and the awesome reviews that they’re receiving.  Then the clan goes into their thoughts on the BBQ Pitmasters Series.  We also discuss myron on Jay Leno.  Diva announces her new website design and address Divaq.ca.

Today we’d like to share with you our boneless chicken breast recipe.  Sit back and enjoy!!

First, we seasoned the breast with tasty licks all purpose bbq rub.

We then rubbed both sides down with Extra Virgin Olive oil and reseasoned with the Tasty Licks BBQ Rub

Once our grill reached 350-360 degrees, we layed the chicken gently onto the grill

After 10 minutes, we flipped the chicken breast to cook the other side

After 10 more minutes or 20-25 minutes total, we painted with our favorite BBQ sauce and mixed in some apricot preserves

Today we’re going to show you how to spatchcock a turkey.  This will be much like our spatchcocked cornish hen video but with a few different ingredients.

First we’ll need to cut along both sides of the spine as shown here.

Once fully cut, pull the spine out and your bird should look like this.

At this point, we’ll need to flip the bird over and place it open side down and apply pressure with both hands until the bird looks like this.

We applied Tasty Licks traditional turkey season and herb blend.  We then added Extra Virgin Olive Oil and then another layer of Tasty Licks on top of the olive oil.

We placed our bird on the smoker once the temp reached 350 degrees.

We created a little mixture of tasty licks traditional turkey rub, extra virgin olive oil, butter and orange juice.  This mixture was applied every half hour after the first hour.  We cooked this one for about 2.5 hours until our bird reached 165 in the breast.  As you can see below, our turkey was so tender and juicy that the leg came off in transport from the grill to the table.

We at Huck’s Hut would like to share this very important tip to our viewers as this can be a dangerous cook.  Check it out!!!

We’ve seen several ads over the internet regarding the TastyLicks BBQ company’s seasonings. In this post we show our recipe for a whole-smoked chicken using this seasoning.

We seasoned up the chicken outside and inside the cavity with the savory poultry as such

Here we cut up some red onion ,garlic and celery then season the veggies with the poultry seasoning also

At this point, we add the veggies to the cavity

Next we coat our bird with olive oil and rub it in thoroughly. More seasoning is added to the surface after that as well. Make sure your grill has reached 275 – 300 degrees then place on the grill

After about 1.5 hrs or once the breast reached 162 degrees it should look as follows

At this point, we melted 2 tablespoons of butter in 4oz of apple juice and mixed a little more of our savory poultry seasoning in and drizzled it on to our chicken

We let our chicken cook for 10 minutes beyond the previous step and we were done.

All in all the savory poultry is a great seasoning. This definitely compliments chicken very well. Huck highly recommends giving this one a shot!!!

We have tried many different jerk spice recipes and could never get that same Island flavor of jerk grouper. We heard about Walkerswood jerk paste but resisted we wanted to make our own. We finally gave this a try. For this post we used Tilapia fish.

We first took a couple of spoons full of walkerswood in a bowl then we added lemon juice and olive oil. When then coated the fish lightly and placed them in the fridge for about an hour.

Now off to the smoker. We fired up the smoker using competition kingsford and a mixture of oak and cherry wood chunks for flavor. As we were cleaning off the grill from the last cook our neighbor said it sure smelled good. We hated to tell him we had nothing cooking so I said thanks stop by later when things get done. Once the smoker got to about 300 when fish went on about 10 mn first side

We then flipped the fish over and cooked for 5min on the flip side.

Before the fish went on we put a small hand full of allspice berries directly in the fire.The combo of oak,cherry and allspice berries filled the air. It wasn’t the grouper that we had on the Island but the flavor was the closest to jerk fish that we have tasted or made.