more chicken quarters

[stiffyman]

I smoked chicken quarters for my son and 10 of his friends before they went off to high school homecoming events on saturday and without a doubt the best ive ever done, some said was the best chicken they have had,
i brined the leg quarters for about 6 hrs, smoked them with pistachio shells, went through 4 foiled pouches, for about 3.5 hrs at 225 degrees. finished them in the oven in a foiled pan at 300 for about another hr, the flavor was mild but very tasty, ive only used misquite in the past, I live in the desert southwest, so misquite is plentyful and free. I have read where folks have used pecan shells for smoiking, and since i live about 5 minutes from a pistachio grove and the shells are free i would try them, and glad i did, and im sure brining had something to do with the success of my weekend smoke.

 

[Deer Meat]

Cool idea stiffy, Pistachio shells.....who would have thought?

 

[captturbo]

I know that I'm a newbie dredging up an old post but this one got my attention. I''m a gardener and I save everything whether it be for making compost or mulch.

I had nine chicken leg quarters to smoke this afternoon (and an unlimited amount of cold beer on hand and no fishing charters on Memorial Day) so my need to smoke ... must smoke ... have to smoke, disorder kicked in and took over.

My sweetheart and I marinaded the cluckers for 48 hours since plans change like the wind arround here, in Italion dressing, the packet kind, so I could use olive oil as the base.

I was planning to use my super old and seasoned arborvitea wood that has become a fave around here but then this wild idea hit me about this bucket of peanut shells (I'm a salted peanut addict) I had sitting around waiting to be sent out to the shredder or dumped as mulch.

Well, enough beer will make a rational man think outside of the box and this knucklehead decided to do a leg quarter smoke on peanut shells. The machine is the MES 30 with the meat probe and the remote.

My MES seems to be going down hill even though it is fairly new. I could not (and never did) attain my set temp of 275. The best I could get was 147* in my 88* jacuzzi room but it was enough to do the job. I will put a call in to MasterBuilt and hope they are decent about getting this sweet machine back on track.

Anyway, the point of this post was to tell you all that the flavor from the peanut shells completetly blew me away! You all need to try this! The thing I found about this was that I had to add soaked peanut hulls every ten to fifteen minutes to keep the good smoke coming. This wasn't such a chore to me since beer is the object and smoking is the excuse. The ppeanut shells are consumed very quickly.

Bottom line: This is the most amazing chicken I can remember eating. I hope a few of you give this a shot. I think you will love it. Happy Memorial Day to all. CaptTurbo.