# Smoking boneless chicken thighs



## smokymcsmokster (Jun 6, 2014)

Can anyone direct me to  what temperature to smoke thighs at? 300? And at around how long? Thanks!


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## rlk438 (Jun 6, 2014)

They don't need low and slow. I do mine at 275 and have remote probe in. Go to 165 IT.  I have also wanted to know time but have learned there are to many variables.  So don't go by time but I think minr took 1.5 to 2 hours. I went with 275 instead of 300 as I wanted a little more time leeway.


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## sqwib (Jun 6, 2014)

I don't check internal but rather go by time but would say thighs are around 180, you get some good rendering taking them up a bit higher.

Lower heat (250 - 275) + longer time more fat renders.

Use a dry rub as well to aid in a better bite thru skin. Dry rubs do better with lower heat.

trim your thighs, pull the skin up a bit, trim fatty part of skin, pull skin back around thigh, poke with fork and pour boiling water slowly over skin right before cooking.














grilled direct heat (infrared)


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## padronman (Jun 6, 2014)

Time is subjective.  Mine usually take 2 hours at 275F.  I look at Internal Temp more than anything.  Dark meat is IT of 170.....I pull at 165 and let rest to reach 170.

Scott


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## Ludmila Makarchuk (Apr 16, 2019)

Hi, 
I'm planning on smoking B/S chicken thighs for Easter and yours look absolute perfection. can you please tell me what seasoning you used. Also, it looks like you soaked them (maybe egg wash) I could totally be wrong. Can you please walk me through what you did. Please! and Thank you!!!





QUOTE]


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## sqwib (Apr 16, 2019)

Im lazy so I'll copy/paste a few things from my website.
I dont do thighs as much on the pit as I used to, I usually oven cook them, but here are some ideas.

Ingredients

*My Pork Rub Recipe*

1/3 cup coarse salt (kosher or sea)
1-1/2 cup (packed) Sugar in the Raw(brown sugar is ok)

1-1/4 cup paprika
1 Tbsp freshly coarse ground black pepper
2 Tbsp garlic powder
¼ cup dried onion flakes
¼ cup onion powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp coriander or Ginger
1 Tbsp rosemary

*Slather Recipe*

Olive Oil
Rosemary
Basil
Salt
Pepper



Crispy Skin

The term crispy skin is a bit subjective, but lets get it straightened out right now, for the sake of this article I will be referring to a  clean bite through as "Crispy Skin" but not to be confused with a deep fried type of skin. What I find acceptable as "Crispy Skin" is if the skin can be taken off the chicken and eaten by itself and has a clean bite through without pulling off the chicken with no gummy or nasty bits.

I have been reading a lot of posts lately about folks asking what temps to cook their chicken at, I have always said 225° - 250° , more recently I have been cooking closer to the 250° - 275° mark. The general consensus is that by cooking at 300° to 325°, the skin will crisp up better which is true to a degree, but you loose the benefits of the "Low and Slow" type of cooking to render some of the fat. 

If I want to cook at the higher temps, I'll use my grill and cook over direct heat.

By cooking "Low and Slow", fat renders in the skin and the result is a neat bite thru of the skin with no fat or gummy texture, it however is not the same type of crispy like you would get from cooking by a higher direct heat, its more of a paper like texture, sorry that's the only way I can describe it.

I also see a lot of folks insisting on 165° max temp for wings, drums and thighs, DONT GET HUNG UP ON 165, this is not for a skinless chicken breast, theres plenty of fat to keep these guys succulent, trust me!
I don’t worry about the internal going above 165° on Thighs and Drums, I will even take my Beer Can Chix way up as well. I don't check internal temps and it would be a safe guess to say the internal temp is at or above 180°.

I have been dabbling with rendering via Sous Vide machine then deep frying, the results are amazing, click here to read about that. If your one that does not like fatty or gummy wings, I urge you to read the article.
A hybrid type of cook would be to render cooking Low and Slow for 1-1/2 - 2 hours then grill over direct heat or deep fry.


So with that said, everyone has their preferred method, I just want to make sure I am not misinforming anyone.

Before I get into this article, I do want to mention that there was an unforeseen problem with this test.
The unforeseen problem was that I was making apple butter in a Dutch oven during the test and as you will see from some of the photos the placement of the Dutch oven was a bad choice for this chicken test. After doing similar cooks the only hindrance the DO made was that the times were a bit longer, more recent cooks the times are slightly less than what is written here. So please bear that in mind. 

All this was done on a Reverse Flow using wood as fuel, White ash and cherry, no wind, ambient temperature was about 75° low humidity.


Before we get started I wanted to note a few tips that may give you better results.

Thighs were not trimmed but I strongly recommend doing the following,

Pull back the skin on the bottom of the thigh and cut off the excessive fatty skin and pull the skin back underneath.
Air dry uncovered overnight in the refrigerator.
Prick the skin with a fork or sharp knife and slowly pour boiling water over thighs right before cooking.

_Since I originally wrote this article in October of 2011, I have reconfirmed a lot of this article over and over again, this article has been edited to be more up to date.*

*_
*Lets get started,*

I took a flat of Thighs and a flat of drums and split each flat in half, each half was seasoned as follows, these thighs were huge.

First Batch was slathered with the following

Olive Oil
Rosemary
Basil
Salt
Pepper

The second batch was as follows


My Pork Rub dry

They were then placed on the Reverse flow alternating each row. Smoked at 225° using white ash for several hours followed by cherry.

After 2 hours the drums with the rub could be eaten the skin was starting to crisp up nicely, the thighs on both still had very fatty skin and the drums were fatty but not as much as the slathered thighs.
I broke it down as follows for easier explanation

2 hours in: (1-1/2 hours)


Dry Rub Drums - Acceptable skin
Slathered Drums - Unacceptable skin slightly fatty
Dry Rub Thighs - Unacceptable skin slightly fatty
Slathered Thighs - Unacceptable skin very fatty

3 hours in: (2 hours)


Dry Rub Drums - Skin was not fatty, most of the fat was rendered, clean bite
Slathered Drums - Acceptable skin
Dry Rub Thighs - Acceptable skin with some fatty areas
Slathered Thighs - Unacceptable slightly fatty


Now I don’t really like going over 3 hours but due to the fact of the placement of the Dutch oven, I had to.

4 hours in: (3 hours)


Dry Rub Drums - Skin was awesome, bites are clean into skin
Slathered Drums - Skin was awesome, bites are clean into skin
Dry Rub Thighs - Skin was awesome, bites are clean into skin with little fatty areas
Slathered Thighs - Acceptable skin

But as I mentioned before, these results were skewed because of the Dutch oven placement however it does give me an answer to the crisp/fatty skin dilemma.
After I removed the Dutch oven the temps in the chamber jumped 50°, the DO was really affecting the air flow and it didn’t dawn on me until I remove the DO and the temp jumped and the chicken was starting to sizzle.

Estimated times for a proper cook in parenthesis.

Four hours is a bit too long especially for the drums.


As far as the flavor goes the slather really, really permeated into the whole piece of chicken, but I prefer the rub.
The texture of the meat was ok after 4 hours but better at the 3 hour mark.

I am sure if the DO was not hindering air flow, that the skins on all 4 would be acceptable or above acceptable at about 3 hours.

A few things folks could try is to:


Use a dry rub as opposed to a slather or oil for lower temps. (oils do better at higher temps)

Trim the really fatty skin off the thigh before smoking.
Render in a Sous Vide machine at 170 for a few hours

Deep fry the thighs and drums first
Deep fry the thighs and drums after 2 hours on the pit
Cook at higher temps, I like the idea of cooking at 225° to 250° because that way I can cook multiple things at once, If I want to cook my chicken at 325° I’ll just toss it on the grill.
After smoking crisp up skin on a grill.
Broil in the oven
Remove thigh skin and pan fry
For RF users, Place skin side down on the reverse flow plate after 1 hour till the skin crisps up, just make sure your RF plate is clean.


I just wanted to make sure my posts were accurate and that what I am posting does not steer someone in the wrong direction. Its easy for someone to have a successful cook and can’t remember the exact method, temps or times then make an uninformed post.
I was getting so paranoid that I was missing something because I seem to be the odd man out.

Experiment for yourself and see what works for you, hope this helps someone!



Now for the pictures:


Dry Rub












Slather.











Slather top and Dry Rub below.







OK everything is ready, time to feed frank.












Notice the Dutch oven, its sitting directly on the Reverse flow plate, restricting the flow under the chicken.

The heat is traveling over top of the DO and directly out of the stack, I had a raging fire with all vents open and I topped out at 250°, that should have been my first sign something was wrong.

Oh, by the way that's "apple butter" in the DO.














The Sun was in a bad position for photographs.












Slathered thigh.







Rubbed thigh.












Time to remove the thighs and drums from the pit.































This was a test cook comparing different types of rub and their impact on trying to get a crispy skin.







Pineapple and Ham, Chicken Bombs

*Ingredients;*


Chicken Thighs
Bacon
Ham
Pineapples
Jalapeno
Cream Cheese
Butter
Loaf pan *pan here *
Pineapple Habanero Sauce
SQWIBS Pork Rub


*Directions;*

Fry Ham
Season both sides Chicken Thighs with SQWIBS Pork Rub

Place ham on thighs
Half, de-vein and de-seed jalapenos, Stuff with Cream Cheese and place on top of ham.
Top pepper with, Drained, crushed pineapple

Roll thigh and wrap with bacon, season lightly with rub

Spray loaf pan with cooking spray, place thighs in pan

Top with butter
Smoke in loaf pan @ 275°F 1-2 hours
remove from pan place on rack on smoker 20 minutes or so.

dip thighs in glaze and place on rack, place back on smoker 10 minutes
Remove from the smoker, rest 15 minutes, slice in half and serve with Pineapple Habanero Sauce on the side or coat sides liberally.
Shoot for Internal temp 175°F - 180°F


Drain and crush pineapples






Fry Ham






Layout Thighs (no trimming)






Season Thighs






Place ham on thighs, place cream cheese jalapenos on top of ham.






Add crushed pineapples.











Spray Pan Loaf with cooking spray.






Wrap thighs in bacon and push firmly into loaf, pan, add a pat of butter and secure with a toothpick.











Friday

Time to toss these on the GOSM











Bombs are removed from Loaf pans then dipped in Pineapple Habanero sauce and placed directly on the grate to set the sauce.






Pineapple Chicken Bombs are sliced in half and topped with Pineapple Habanero Sauce.












For the Salami, Chicken Bombs I just replaced the ham with hard Salami and omitted the pineapple and Pineapple Habanero Sauce.










Friday

Time to toss the Salami, Chicken Bombs on the GOSM












Salami Chicken bombs are sliced in half to serve.


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