2020 Champion Chiles Cridlin’s BBQ Chicken

Instructions

1. The day before you cook. Mix and blend your injection ingredients and put them into the refrigerator to chill. Never inject a cold turkey with a warm injection.
2. With an injector, inject each chicken thigh with the injection liquid in a grid-like pattern to get as much in each thigh and evenly distributed as you can. Place in a pan, cover tightly and return to the refrigerator overnight, we like 12 hours but at a minimum of 4 hours.
3. On the day of the cook. Remove the thighs from refrigerator and packaging, wipe off any excess injection liquid in preparation for the rub. Evenly coat the bottom and skin side of each thigh with a generous coat of Heath Riles Honey Rub. Roll each thigh so that the skin almost wraps around the entire thigh and gently place on a rack in a disposable half pan and pour about 1/4“of the injection liquid in the bottom of the pan along with one stick of margarine, cut into cubes.
4. Let the rub sweat in by allowing the thighs to rest on the counter while you light your smoker and prepare for cooking, no more than 2 hours, please.
5. Light your smoker using Royal Oak Natural Lump charcoal and a few pieces of applewood for color and flavor. Allow your smoker to get up to temp and have the smoke running clean. Set your target temp300degrees and place the turkey breast in the center of the smoker. Spritz lightly with “I Cannot Believe It’s Not Butter” after the first hour, and rotate the thighs if you notice one side is getting more color than the other.
6. After about 1.5 hours, cover the thighs in the half pan tightly with aluminum foil. Place them back in the smoker and let them cook for another 20 minutes (your smoker and timetable may vary) until the thighs reach 200 degrees. Check this by probing through the foil but do not open them up!
7. Once cooked, remove from the pan and dunk each thigh individually into your sauce. Place back on the rack and place in the smoker for 3 to 5 minutes to set the sauce and serve!