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[Queball]

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From what I've observed, appearance plays a major role in competition turn ins. Although not competing, I think all of us who cook want our finished dishes to be visually appealing. One irritant for me has always been the way chicken skin shrinks up on chicken thighs. We've got some solid competition cooks here on the site, and I'm sure there is a method to negate this. I was hoping they might share some ideas with us non-competitors on how to get it crisp  or "bite through" but not shrivel up ...... and improve our presentation.

[Kristin Meredith]

Some cooks take the skin off, scrap the skin and put it back on, sometimes with meat glue.

I am too lazy for that.  I trim all the fat, including digging it out of the inside pockets of the thighs, cut off the Pope's Nose and trim the pieces up into a uniform shape.  I leave the skin as "long" as I can on the sides, trim it up and wrap it under the thigh. You want a nice little mummy of a thigh. Place your chicken skin side up on the grill.  Cook for 1 hour at 225, maybe 250.  Take your chicken off.  Put the chicken in a steam tray and pour a little sauce over each piece.  Cover tightly with aluminum foil, don't let any steam escape.  Cook for another hour at 250*

Take the chicken off.  You can spoon the juices from the pan over it again or dip in sauce.  I then put back on the grill at about 300* for 5 to 10 minutes.  This should give you bite through skin if that is important to you.

[Free Mr. Tony]

I think the main thing as far as just not pulling back like that is trimming the thigh down as Kristen mentioned. I trim probably 25% of the thigh meat off then the skin wraps around nicely and also under the thigh. Relatively low temps helps too. If you grill the thigh I'm not sure there is much you could do.

[BigDave83]

from what I have found through my experiments on whole birds, if I start low and go for a while and then slowly bump the temps 30 degrees or so at a time giving the skin and chicken time to react to temp changes. I have found that going from 225 to say finishing temp of say 375 the fast change in temp is what causes the shrinkage.

[Jimsbarbecue]

Some cooks take the skin off, scrap the skin and put it back on, sometimes with meat glue.

I am too lazy for that.  I trim all the fat, including digging it out of the inside pockets of the thighs, cut off the Pope's Nose and trim the pieces up into a uniform shape.  I leave the skin as "long" as I can on the sides, trim it up and wrap it under the thigh. You want a nice little mummy of a thigh. Place your chicken skin side up on the grill.  Cook for 1 hour at 225, maybe 250.  Take your chicken off.  Put the chicken in a steam tray and pour a little sauce over each piece.  Cover tightly with aluminum foil, don't let any steam escape.  Cook for another hour at 250*

Take the chicken off.  You can spoon the juices from the pan over it again or dip in sauce.  I then put back on the grill at about 300* for 5 to 10 minutes.  This should give you bite through skin if that is important to you.

This is not just for competition. It is good eats too

[Queball]

Kristen,
These are bone in chicken thighs or deboned but skin on? .... Does removing the fat have any impact on the skin shrinking? Is that why some remove the skin and scrape it?

FMT,
You trim the perimeter edges to make the diameter of the thigh smaller?

BD83,
Obviously direct grilling the skin to crisp it isn't going to fly because of the temperature issue.

Do you ever pin the skin with tooth picks for example on the underside to help negate shrinkage? Ever oil the skin to aid in crisping?
Thanks! for the idea food.

[Free Mr. Tony]

This is not my pic. I pulled one from Google Images, then drew my own cut lines. Where I drew the black is kind of where I cut. It squares them up, and there is typically plenty of extra skin.

[Kristin Meredith]

My thighs are bone in with skin on.  I also square them up when trimming, but don't cut them like FMT's photo.  I tend to trim all around.  A comp thigh at turn in is a lot smaller than what comes out of the package.  I am not sure if removing the fat has an impact on the skin, I just don't want a judge to get a mouthful of fat.

Someone who scraps will have to answer that question.  I think it removes fat from the skin.

[Queball]

As compared to sausage where "Fat is Flavor", it's the opposite here it appears. .... Just want pure chicken taste  or fat can impact the taste of the rub and sauce? ....  Looking for uniformity, how many extra chicken breasts do you need to bring to get the presentation pieces to look the same once you've trimmed and cooked them?

[Free Mr. Tony]

I think fat still equals flavor here, but one way to almost guarantee you get bite through skin is scraping the fat. You almost can't screw it up that way. If you don't scrape there are plenty of ways to get bite through, but in my opinion also more window for errors. Obviously, these comp guys that do it week after week have it the process down. When you do it here and there, scraping just kind of takes some of the guesswork out. I certainly wouldn't bother scraping skin for a home cook. If I was watching fat intake, I would just leave the skin off entirely when I cooked it.

In my personal comp story, I had never cooked chicken for a comp before. I used a brine plus a buttermilk marinade to get the moisture that may have been lost by scraping the skin,  and not using the braising method. I cooked probably 24 thighs at the AR, but if there wasn't a ton of people too feed I would have cooked one 12 pack. I wasn't overly concerned with uniformity. There will always be 6 out of 12 that are close enough for me.

Trooper and Tech may be the uniformity guys to answer. They have a pretty meticulous mini muffin loaf pan process that results in an OCD like uniform product. And I mean that as a compliment. I like a clean nice box and meat, but I don't have that gene.

[Kristin Meredith]

I am removing the fat chunks because a judge is required to just bite -- they don't have a knife and fork and can't cut out a pocket of fate if they eat it -- and it isn't pleasant.  I cook what is in one pack for a comp -- usually between 12 and 16 pieces.

[Free Mr. Tony]

I re-read some of the original comments. Queball, you mentioned crisp a couple times. I believe Bentley has commented on this in the past. Bite through isn't necessarily interchangeable with crisp. When you braise the thighs like most comp teams it renders the fat enough to become bite through. The ones I have tried like that have never been crisp. So it can be crisp and bite through, but also just bite through. Not that I'm saying you were confused on anything, just clarifying if needed.

I'm not saying its not possible,  but I don't believe I've ever personally had truly crispy chicken skin that wasn't either rotisserie cooked,  or deep fried.

[ZCZ]

I used a method very similar to Kristin's in the 2012 Royal.  As you can tell by the posts above my feeling is that Chicken is the hardest meat in comps due to all the meticulous prep work.  Kinda why I switched to doing ribs.  Although it was a great learning experience practicing during the summer of 2012.  My wife ate a lot chicken that summer. 

As FMT says Trooper and TechMOgogy would be the guys to ask.  I have watched both of them at a comp.

Z

[Queball]

ZCZ,

Coming in 24th in ribs in 2015 ...... Obviously a good move leaving that chicken behind. It's just amazing how much science and subtle art go into the competition world. ... and we're just talkin about chicken.

[TechMOGogy]

Yup crisp and bite through are 2 different things
For my family we like crispy which equals shrinking skin unless you do whole birds.
For comp it is completely different prep process and cooking technique however I am no expert.
Dan