On the Wednesday night before our end-of-school cookout, I laid forty chicken thighs skin side up on wire racks over four sheet pans, salted every one and slid them into the fridge uncovered. Ryan opened the door at 5:20 the next morning, looked for his lunch behind a wall of raw chicken and closed it again without a word.
The kids' last day was May 22, and every year my department and our families get together the week after to eat something that didn't come off a lunch tray. This year it was Thursday, May 29, at a picnic pavilion in Spring Hill, about thirty people counting kids. Ryan volunteered to cook, then did the math on our mid-size pellet grill: twenty-four thighs on the main grate, sixteen on the upper rack. That's how we landed on forty.
We'd smoked chicken for a crowd once before, at 225°F, and the skin came out like a pool float. This time we planned around the skin. Chicken skin is mostly water and fat, and at low smoker temperatures the water never dries off and the fat never renders, so it turns rubbery instead of crisp. Salt and a little baking powder overnight dry the surface, and a hotter finish takes care of the fat.
Ingredients
- 40 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, about 15 pounds
- 1/3 cup kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons baking powder (not baking soda)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons smoked paprika
- 2 tablespoons garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons onion powder
- 1 tablespoon black pepper
- Two bottles of barbecue sauce for the table, one sweet and one vinegary
No cayenne, because Nora was coming, and so were a lot of other people's kids.
How we smoked forty
- The night before, pat the thighs dry and trim off any flaps of loose skin. Mix the salt and baking powder, sprinkle it over every side, and set the thighs skin side up on racks over sheet pans. Refrigerate uncovered overnight.
- Mix the brown sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder and pepper. Sprinkle it on just before the thighs go on the grill.
- Heat the pellet grill to 275°F. Thighs go on skin side up, half an inch apart, for 1 hour.
- Turn the grill up to 350°F for another 35 to 45 minutes, until the skin is tight and deep brown and the biggest thighs read 175 to 185°F.
- Meanwhile, fill a big cooler with hot tap water for 20 minutes, drain it, dry it and line it with towels. Move the thighs into foil pans, tent the foil loosely instead of crimping it, and close the lid.
- Serve within an hour, and keep them above 140°F while they wait.
Ryan got home from the plant at 2:40 that Thursday, and the grill was at 275 by three. The bottom grate finished first. The top rack ran about fifteen minutes behind, so the first two pans went into the cooler while he waited on the rest. His rule for the afternoon was one sentence long: "Smoke is the easy part. Skin takes heat." He never let the dial drop below 275.
The USDA minimum for chicken is 165°F, and it's the number my students hear on the first day of kitchen labs. Thighs are better at 175 to 185, and unlike breasts they don't dry out getting there. Ryan checked the biggest thigh in every row with the $25 instant-read thermometer we'd bought the week before, and then it rode in his shirt pocket for the rest of the night. That thermometer has earned its own post, and it's coming next week.
One thing still went wrong, and it was mine. Out of habit, I crimped the foil tight on the third pan, and those thighs steamed in the cooler. By the time we opened it at the pavilion, that pan's skin had gone soft. The two pans with tented foil were still crisp at the edges forty minutes later. Steam is the enemy of skin, so give it a way out.
At the pavilion, I kept the cooler shut until the line formed, and nothing sat out longer than an hour on an 88-degree evening. We came home with four thighs, which went into a zip bag on ice in the drink cooler the minute the line was gone. Jack ate one cold for breakfast Friday, standing at the open fridge, and gave it an eight.
Four family packs from Kroger came to 15.3 pounds at $1.79 a pound, $27.39, and with the rub and pellets we figure the chicken cost about 90 cents a thigh.
