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While chicken thighs weren't a staple at my house growing up, I've found them to be one of the best meats for delicious consistency when smoked. Compared to other options, they have a lot going for them:
- Higher Fat Content - The dark meat of the chicken thigh renders well over the course of a smoke session, lubricating and basting the meat within to keep it nice and juice rich. This moisture also works well as a smoke attractant, harvesting that woody goodness from the egg.
- Collagen & Connective Tissue - Along with the higher fat content, the connective tissue and collagen within the thigh require a higher temperature than plain white meat to break down. While a chicken breast easily dries out around 160 degrees, chicken thighs really need to get up to 175-185°F (79-85°C) in order to properly break down all of that tissue into tasty jelly.
- Not too Big - While briskets and pork shoulders get a lot of fanfare, they take a looooong time to smoke. Chicken thighs are very small by comparison and are therefore much faster to cook. Even with a 10-15 minute direct heat cycle to crisp the skin, I can have a full load of thighs done in two hours.
- They're Cheap - What more can you ask for?
Ingredients
- Pack of Chicken Thighs - A six-eight pound family pack fits well on my Large Egg.
- Olive Oil - To help the seasoning stick and crisp the skin
- Seasoning - Your choice - I like a Montreal Steak Seasoning or the basic Grillmate's Poultry blend.
Tools
- Big Green Egg with ConvEggtor
- Smoking Chips - Choice of Wood
- Aluminum Foil and/or drip Tray
- Large Bowl
- Grill Tongs
- Probe Thermometer
Directions for Cooking
- Remove Chicken Thighs from packaging and place in bowl
- Toss Chicken Thighs in Olive Oil and season - be generous! I leave my meat out inside to start coming up to room temperature. Optionally, you can dry brine after seasoning by leaving uncovered in the fridge or wet brine overnight prior to oiling with a ratio of 50g of salt per 1 liter of brine or 1/4 cup salt per quart. Soak your wood chips.
- Setup Big Green Egg for Indirect Cooking - I like to cover my convEggtor in foil for easy cleanup. I go ahead and set my vents once the interior temp gets to around 200°F, targeting 250°F as my final cook temperature, tossing in my wet wood chips on top of the lit charcoal. Go ahead and put in your drip tray when you put the conveggtor and grate back in place. We want everything other than the chicken to already be at target temperature.
- Add Chicken Thighs over drip tray and cook for around 90 minutes at 250°F. I would go ahead and plug in the probe thermometer at 75 minutes.
- Once the chicken thighs get to around 155°F internally, remove from the grill and take out the convEggtor. Setup for direct heat cooking and bring the grill temperature up to around 400°F.
- Add Chicken Thighs back to heat, skin down, and cook until internal temperatures get to the targeted 175-185°F. Your larger pieces will be towards the lower end of the range, target the small pieces to be not much higher than 185°F. Rotate thighs if needed to balance out heat. Skin should be nice and crispy.
- Enjoy.
Commentary
Brine - I usually just go with a dry brine. In my experience, the difference between flavor and crispiness for the wet brine is not worth the additional effort, but chase your bliss. If you're doing a pickle brine, that may be a worthwhile exception.
Double Up - Chicken Thighs will have the same cook time as a small/medium pork tenderloin, so you can get away with smoking both at the same time. The pork will cook slower due to its relative thickness but needs a lower final temperature which means it will get done about the same time as the smoking portion of the chicken thighs. Heck, you can even throw some corn on there. It won't get over-cooked. I would probably wrap it through before the crisping hot cook at the end.
