Would anyone that regularly smokes chicken mind sharing their tips/techniques as well as any rubs or glazes for turning out really good smoked chicken? Do you cook whole or parts? Do you brine?

I've only once smoked some wings and they turned out decent. I smoke beef and pork 99% of the time and occasionally salmon, but would like to expand my smoking repertoire.

Chicken is fickle, temp swings make rubber chicken. I almost always use my electric smoker for chicken so it keeps temp perfect. I use a stick burner and a LGE for other stuff, but chicken seems to do better in my electric

I always have better luck with a turkey breast than chicken. I can consistently have it come out beautiful.

I've tried a lot of different things with chicken and never been real happy with the results. For instance one poster said he loves beer can chicken…….to me it just comes out soggy and rubbery. I gave up on chicken. If poultry…….turkey.

I smoke mostly legs… season the outside…. throw them on… I just smoke for skin color then i toss them all in an aluminum pan or 2 and cover in foil and back in smoker til they are pulling back

RCR06 said:

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I like to do leg quarters if I'm smoking chicken. I usually make a brine and let them sit in that overnight.

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Same me and my family don't like white meat as much so we usually do quarters. If not quarters I will do legs, thighs and wings.

My absolute fave for wings is salt and pepper, 45-60 in the smoker at 200, then I air fry at 425 to finish them, then toss in a 50/50 mix of franks wing sauce and korean bbq. You will not be disappointed

I do a brine of 1 cup of salt to 1 gallon of water with about 1/4 cup brown sugar, some garlic cloves, peppercorns, and the juice of one orange. Ideally brine overnight, pull out and rinse off, pat dry, and then I separate the white and dark meat. Thighs and drumsticks together, 2 breasts together on the bone and spatchcocked so it's flat. I will sometimes rub with butter then I tend to have a hard time getting the skin to not be rubbery when I do that. I pepper heavily, and as someone mentioned, hotter temp is better. I usually smoke around 300 with hickory and mesquite. Pull white meat around 150 degrees and let dark meat go to 180.

I love bbq chicken and honestly hotter temps work better and taste better to me. I don;t think I have ever cooked a chicken halved or otherwise lower than 275. I still use my Old Smokey most of the time if cooking Chicken unless a larger amount of it. Brine over niight, at least is the best for me and ligtly season with whatever seasoning you like. I generally brine with a seasoning or two, thats why I do not season heavliy when putting it on.

Poultry definitely benefits from an overnight brine, just watch out on making it too salty as some chicken and turkey products come in a brine solution already.

I generally either spatchcock or fully split a chicken in half to make for better and more even cooking. Cook at 300-350 on your pit temp. Smoking at too low of a temperature will make the skin rubbery, run the pit hotter than you would with beef and pork. Keep it simple on the rub at first, SPG to start, and then add more seasonings if you think it needs more.

Give turkey breast a try as well to expand your experience. Look for the big ones at HEB or local meat markets, should be 3-5 pounds for a single breast. Not a roast, or the ones with the ribcage still attached, just a single boneless breast. Take the skin off, season it well, and cook at 275 pit temp until internal temp is 140. Then wrap it in foil with half a stick of butter and keep cooking until the internal temp is 152-155 and pull it.

As someone else above noted, dont freak out that its not 165, pasteurization is a function of temperature and time, and it will still be food safe and way more juicy than if you cook it to 165+. You'll never think turkey meat is dry again until thanksgiving rolls around and you're eating the boring oven turkey your in-laws cooked up that needs to be submerged in gravy to save it.

Thank you all for the information and tips. This gives me a great place to start! Looking forward to some smoked yard bird.

Back in the day, chicken was my competition category at cook-offs.


Whole chicken, giblets removed
use a filet knife and separate the breast from skin without removing
Season between skin and breast and on top of the skin all over including inside cavity
stuff with garlic, onion chunks and sprigs of rosemary
stitch closed using butchers twine
smoke at around 300 then 350 toward the end about 2-3 hours checking temp. Rotate regularly.
remove as soon as it hits 165, do not wrap or rest in cooler
cut up chicken as soon as you can handle, serve hot

faster cooking times if you don't stuff and close up

I use a water smoker. I have done this for more decades than i care to remember. We put whole chickens sometimes four. I dust inside and outside with Tex-Joy barbecue spice. I soak some hickory or mesquite chips to put on the coals at the bottom before putting the birds on. I have it written down about the duration but it depends on ambient temperature outside. It's usually about 3.5-4 hours. I understand that this method may not be for everyone, but my bride likes it this way. She also likes some Holmes sausage smoked with the chicken but only for about two hours.

• Small birds 4-4.5# max
• Wet brine or inject (I can make it fly with neither if I'm not drinking heavily)
• Always spatchcock whole birds
• I toothpick the skin down around the edges to cover all meat
• Rub, spray with olive oil
• 225-250 until 155-160 in the thigh
• About 3/4 of the way through, I "tent" - not wrap. Long strip of foil, put birds on and fold it away from the firebox over the chicken. This seems to direct more smoke out the stack and less on the birds to prevent over smoking.
• Lightly sauce "glaze" 30 minutes before taking off

some of the best...if not THE best wings I ever had were smoked first for a little bit. Then dropped in the fryer for just a few minutes to finish cooking and crisp up

Now I'm going to have to do a bunch of wings....quarters and whole bird!!!

RCR06 said:

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I like to do leg quarters if I'm smoking chicken. I usually make a brine and let them sit in that overnight.

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Chicken hips is where it's at. Just gotta keep some hotdogs on hand for the white meat people.

I cook lots of chicken each year at Easter for a big family event. Mainly just salt and pepper it, then hotter and faster on my stick burner than red meat. I ALWAYS use a water pan with poultry. It's so much more tender and juicy. Do not overcook it! But I have never brined etc. This is what works for me and they beg me to bring it every year.

BrazosDog02 said:

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Nothing hard about chicken on the smoker. Hot and fast. Screw all the hemming and hawing over it. Throw it on, get it hot, keep it hot, pull it off.

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Chicken is season the hell out of it and put it on at 350 and cook it. Turkey for Thanksgiving I put more work into. Brine, spatchcock, and smoke at around 225-250. Always turns out great.

All of our BBQ competitions were excuses to drink beer and hang out. We came in second one time in chicken, and all of the other teams were somewhat baffled! Season the chicken and put it on the grill! No need for brining and injecting. I think the judges were just happy to get normal BBQ chicken.

Spatchcock it. Brine it. Rub it. Smoke it hot abd fast, 350-400F. Glaze it the last 15 minutes. Rest. Cut into pieces with poultry shears.

Brine: salt, sugar, orange slices, apple juice, cloves

Rub: fiesta chicken fajita

Glaze: tiger sauce and duke's mayo

Been said already but chicken needs to be brined.

I do a whole bird. Brine for 24 hrs. Simple salt/sugar/pepper/garlic powder brine.

Then take out of brine day before smoke and let water all runoff, pat dry, and place in a wire rack in a pan and leave in fridge at least over night.

I do a light seasoning on skin, and then carefully separate skin from breast area and rub between skin/meat with EVOO and some seasoning.

Smoke to internal temp of 165 in breast.

Let it rest for 10-15 minutes then carve/cut up.

I don't care enough about chicken to brine it, non-competition. Admittedly not a huge BBQ chicken fan.

Slather in mayo, season, and smoke at 250-300. I prefer halves but spatchcock or beer can are good too. I do like to separate the skin at the bottom of the leg but that's mostly personal preference.

If you like smoking poultry, boneless turkey breast is very easy and makes a great product.

Everyone talking about brining poultry….

If you're going to brine a turkey, make sure and read the label. Most of the big brands have pre-injected with a brine solution so you can easily over-salt it. We use HEB fresh "never frozen" turkeys to avoid this because I like a brined turkey for the smoker. I use Alton Brown's method of salt and brown sugar. A brine with spices doesn't do much to season the bird, it's mostly a texture and moisture retention exercise but it works.
Some of the larger chicken providers also do this, but typically with larger birds. Just read the labels carefully.

We buy our chickens from Midway in Katy. They're small, 3-3.5 lbs, but I know where they come from and they are always fresh. They're raised in either Brenham or Bellville.

I've bought the pre-brined solution ones as well, and it's pretty weak in terms of a brine. May be moist, but no real flavor. I've re-brined those and never had an issue with saltiness, but I do make sure to rinse mine after I brine it.

I bought one of those brine bucket things. I use it for turkeys, turkey breast, pork butts, and I make fermented pickles with the cucumbers that are a little too big for standard canning.

Back to the OP's question, keep in mind, all the temps referenced here are pit specific. The location of the temp gauges matters a lot. I have the wireless probes that also give ambient temp. That helps. My smaller backyard smoker has a 20 degree difference from grate to gauge. My trailer smoker is closer to 30-35 degrees because we put the gauges too high.

So, on my big smoker the gauge may read 375 but I'm actually at 340.

I love smoking chicken thighs on the pellet smoker. You can't mess those up.

I use Mayo and Steen's (2/3 - 1/3) with Rudy's Poultry Rub (add to your preference for spice level). Spatchcock the chicken and rub all over with the mixture. Smoke at 225F until the breast is 155. Dry smoke for the first 30 minutes, then add dark beer to the smoker. Use oak wood for the smoke.

I didn't mention my wood....

I use live oak as a base fire/heat generator and top with pecan for the flavor/smoke. Once the birds are tented I'll switch to live oak to save my pecan, its been hard to get lately.

Anyone that needs some pecan cut let me know, I'm in Katy but will travel.

Don't overthink it. This has worked every single time.