Ever tie / net up a bunch of boneless chicken?

[jiver]

Has anyone ever tied up / used a net to bunch together a mess of boneless / skinless chicken pieces for smoking?  I did some thighs on the mini a couple weeks ago and they were fantastic, but I'm wondering about using a net to throw a bunch in to make something the size of a small pork shoulder (and therefore be able to do more in the small space).  Seems like it would be great to be able to smoke several pounds like that and then pull them like pork.  Has anyone ever done this?

 

[bmaddox]

I have not done it or heard of it. The thing that worries me about that concept is that boneless/skinless chicken has next to no fat in it so you risk drying out the outside pieces before the inside ones are done.

 

[jiver]

Good point.  If you did this, perhaps brining and going lower than normal for chicken would help.  I did the individual thighs at 300 for two hours, so maybe you could drop that to 250 and go longer.  Maybe the brining would help keep it moist...(?)

 

[mdboatbum]

I'm not sure what bunching them all up together would gain you. You'd be artificially creating a piece of meat with a much lower surface to mass ratio resulting in a longer cook, less crust and most importantly all of that surface bacteria on the individual pieces would be nicely nestled into the center making a nice warm, moist, oxygen free cocoon for bacteria to thrive. If you were to do this you'd have to be VERY careful with times and temps.
Honestly I think putting the individual pieces in at a low to moderate temp and bringing them to pulling temperature would get you a better, safer end result.