Rubbery skin on whole chicken

[EarlT]

Greetings,First let me say how glad I am that this forum is here. It is one of the reasons I bought a Smokin it smoker. My first cook was a whole chicken. Set thermostat to 250, cooked until internal temperature was 165 degrees. The meat was great but the skin was uneatable. Very rubbery. Could it be the quality of the bird or should preparation be different? Thanks in advance. 

 

[va_rider]

So, on a model 1, without an external controller (the Auber) 250degrees will be your cap for high end of temp. To get crispy skin, you really need to be higher. The low and slow method will pretty much always yield rubbery skin on Chicken and Sausage and whatnot. With an Auber, you can push the temps up to the 300-325 range on other models... I'm not 100% familiar with the capability of the heating element in the #1, but hopefully, someone else will chime in who is.

My way for doing chicken and other things where I'm trying to avoid rubbery skin is to do a split cook. Basically, smoke the meat up to 70-80% of desired finished temperature, then finish on the grill. This is normally the way I do wings, and the way I've done spatchcocked chickens.  For wings, I smoke for about a half hour (That's a half hour of smoke production) for whole chickens or chicken quarters/halves I'll smoke for 45min to an hour. Then, finish on the grill.

 

[Meatball]

If I am not mistaken , The 1 has a 400 watt heating element compared to an 800 in the number 2 model , the 3 has a 1200 watt and the 4 has a 1500 watt . Most folks on here would recommend discarding the skin on poultry coming out of the smoker unless using a second heating source such as a oven or grill to finish with.

 

[NDKoze]

I tend to take mine out of the smoker about 10 degrees before done and finish in the oven or grill depending on if I am cooking parts or whole chicken. Or sometimes I just throw it away.

 

[jcboxlot]

Skin and chicken in these smokers has been talked about a lot.  You need higher heat for the crispy skin, or a way to finish it after the smoke.  Finish on grill or oven or broiler before it hits temp.

NDK nailed it.

 

[SconnieQ]

Every post previous to me has great advice. Don't get me wrong, I love crispy chicken skin, and I have a #1. I feel the fat from the skin gets too rendered at 250 to leave enough fat to crisp properly on the grill or under the broiler, but you should definitely give it a try and see if it works for you. I feel the skin ends up thin and "papery", and tough. Fact is, the meat is so moist and delicious, you will not miss the skin. See my signature line below for suggestions on what to do with it.

 

[EarlT]

Thanks for all the advice. I will try to put it to good use. The bottom line is that the meat was delicious.

 

[Meatball]

Wonder if anyone smoked a turkey and did a quick flash fry?

 

[jcboxlot]

Smoked turkey breast is great.  I throw out the skin, leftovers for a good time!  Everytime people rave over it. 

Never tried a fry.

 

[Meatball]

We don't do a lot of fried food at our house but we did 7 fried turkeys this past Thanksgiving for friends that turned out well.
I prefer smoking over the frying.