Camping with chicken legs

[jwbusmusher]

Hello all.  This is my first try at the forums but I have a situation.  I am camping soon with inlaws and will be introducing them to smoking during the trip.  I have purchased several family packs of chicken legs as I can freeze them and they will thaw in the cooler and be ready to smoke with relatively short smoke time.  My usual method of overnight brining wont work due to lack of refrigeration at the campsite.  Any suggestions?

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Freeze then in your brine.

 

[tallbm]

Hi there and welcome!

I'm assuming these are full chicken quarters (thigh and drumbstick).

dirtsailor has your brine solution completely figured out!

I'm 100% sure you will be fine without brine if you decide to bypass it for the chicken legs.

I never brine chicken quarters (or any dark meat chicken) for smoking.  With the skin on they never dry out on me and EXPLODE with juice when I pull them off and squeeze too hard with the tongs.  

Just season and throw on the smoker at the temps you like and you will be ready to go!

Just a tip though, if you don't want rubbery/leathery skin texture try and keep your heat around 325F or higher.  That should keep your skin edible.

Let us know what you decide on and how it turns out!

 

[noboundaries]

X2 on no need to brine dark meat. Or brine them, then freeze 'em. I've never done it, but it should work as long as the chicken wasn't previously frozen.

 

[jwbusmusher]

​Thanks for the tip on the temp, ill try it a bit hotter.  I usually smoke whole chickens about 250 but I figured it would be easier to do the legs while camping.   I'm not too familiar with chicken legs but i'll practice a few times before may.