I picked up a couple boneless skinless chicken breasts the other day. I know, not the best thing to smoke. I didn't do any research before hand or I would have bought something else. However, I figured I'd go for it anyway. My research (after purchase) lead me to realize I needed to brine the breasts... lol to be honest, I didn't know what that was... So I did some more research. lol. End the end this is what I ended up doing:
Meat: Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (fresh, not frozen)
Brine: Slaughterhouse Poultry Brine (thank you)
Rub: Stubbs Chicken Spice Rub
Sauce: Homemade Peach BBQ Sauce
Wood: Apple (leftovers from last weekends cook)
I brined the breasts for approximately 1 hour... actually a little longer. Covered them in a thin coat of evoo and applied the rub. I smoked them at 225-250 until I got an IT of 167. Couple extra for good measure... I'm paranoid and a newb cook. The entire smoke (meat on smoker) lasted 2 hours and 45 mins. From my research, that was on the long end of things, but I did read of others taking as long.
The peach bbq sauce was a recipe I found on another website (not smoker centered). It wasn't bad, but I'll use another recipe in the future or tweak this one. This one ended up being way to peachy (sweet) and didn't have any kick. The recipe didn't specify how much peach preserve to add and I guess I went over board. Live and learn.
The end product was very good. Which is what matter I guess. However, next time, assuming I use the same rub, I'll use a lot less. The flavor was very strong and almost made it uneatable. The sweet sauce did help bring it down a little, so I guess I lucked out on that front.
I under estimated the cook time, so the other parts of the meal were out of time. I had also prepared some good ole mac n cheese and I tried to make some homemade baked french fries. Notice the word tried? Yeah I burnt them... I did say I was a newb cook. The fries would have been tasty, if I wouldn't have burned them. I used a spice recipe (again from a non-smoker centered website) mixed with some evoo. I almost took a bit of them in raw form... in hind sight, they would have probably been better that way then how they came out of the oven.
Okay... picture time:
Blending the brine
-Way, way, way too much brine. Lesson learned.
Prepared breasts
Peach BBQ Sauce brewing
-Again, more than I needed, but at least it wasn't over as much as the brine.
Rubbed breasts, ready for smoker
The failed fries (pre-burning)
Finished breasts off smoker
-I didn't glaze with sauce during the cook. Once the lid was closed, it didn't open until it was done.
Close up of finished breast
-Sorry for the bad lighting, the flash killed the difference in the color of the meat. I was worried about the 'pink' ring around the outside of the breast. I told an ex-restaurant cook that I smoke some chicken breasts and without me showing him a picture or mentioning it, he said something about the 'pink' meat. I laughed and told him I was going to ask him about it cause it made me nervous eating it. He told me that was normal. Is his advice correct? Is this the smoke ring that people speak of?
Tonights leftovers
-The flavoring in the meat when served like this wasn't as over powering as it was the night before. There's a layer of cheddar cheese under that meat, a touch of the peach bbq sauce on the bun top and the bun was buttered and toasted.
Thanks for looking.
Meat: Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (fresh, not frozen)
Brine: Slaughterhouse Poultry Brine (thank you)
Rub: Stubbs Chicken Spice Rub
Sauce: Homemade Peach BBQ Sauce
Wood: Apple (leftovers from last weekends cook)
I brined the breasts for approximately 1 hour... actually a little longer. Covered them in a thin coat of evoo and applied the rub. I smoked them at 225-250 until I got an IT of 167. Couple extra for good measure... I'm paranoid and a newb cook. The entire smoke (meat on smoker) lasted 2 hours and 45 mins. From my research, that was on the long end of things, but I did read of others taking as long.
The peach bbq sauce was a recipe I found on another website (not smoker centered). It wasn't bad, but I'll use another recipe in the future or tweak this one. This one ended up being way to peachy (sweet) and didn't have any kick. The recipe didn't specify how much peach preserve to add and I guess I went over board. Live and learn.
The end product was very good. Which is what matter I guess. However, next time, assuming I use the same rub, I'll use a lot less. The flavor was very strong and almost made it uneatable. The sweet sauce did help bring it down a little, so I guess I lucked out on that front.
I under estimated the cook time, so the other parts of the meal were out of time. I had also prepared some good ole mac n cheese and I tried to make some homemade baked french fries. Notice the word tried? Yeah I burnt them... I did say I was a newb cook. The fries would have been tasty, if I wouldn't have burned them. I used a spice recipe (again from a non-smoker centered website) mixed with some evoo. I almost took a bit of them in raw form... in hind sight, they would have probably been better that way then how they came out of the oven.
Okay... picture time:
Blending the brine
-Way, way, way too much brine. Lesson learned.
Prepared breasts
Peach BBQ Sauce brewing
-Again, more than I needed, but at least it wasn't over as much as the brine.
Rubbed breasts, ready for smoker
The failed fries (pre-burning)
Finished breasts off smoker
-I didn't glaze with sauce during the cook. Once the lid was closed, it didn't open until it was done.
Close up of finished breast
-Sorry for the bad lighting, the flash killed the difference in the color of the meat. I was worried about the 'pink' ring around the outside of the breast. I told an ex-restaurant cook that I smoke some chicken breasts and without me showing him a picture or mentioning it, he said something about the 'pink' meat. I laughed and told him I was going to ask him about it cause it made me nervous eating it. He told me that was normal. Is his advice correct? Is this the smoke ring that people speak of?
Tonights leftovers
-The flavoring in the meat when served like this wasn't as over powering as it was the night before. There's a layer of cheddar cheese under that meat, a touch of the peach bbq sauce on the bun top and the bun was buttered and toasted.
Thanks for looking.
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