Competition Style Chicken Thighs...

These competition style chicken thighs are super moist, pack some big flavor and have that tender ?bite through? skin that the judges look for. There?s nothing worse than rubbery chicken skin that pulls off in one whole piece and slaps you in the chin. Burnt or shrunken skin isn?t very appetizing either. Follow these instructions and your chicken thighs will be competition ready!

Start off with neatly trimmed chicken that look something like this. For instructions on how to trim your thighs for competition, go here: http://thehogblog.com/?p=677

The first thing to do is turn the thighs skin side down and give them a healthy coating of your favorite spice rub. I use my own Mister Bob?s Blue Ribbon Spice Rub which you can find in our store.

After about 15 minutes, turn the chicken over and give it a healthy coating on the skin side.

Put a thick pad of butter (or margarine) on top of each piece

and put them in the cooker at 275 degrees. Leave them uncovered for the first hour, then cover with aluminum foil and cook for one more hour.

I used the Big Green Egg for this batch and controlled the temperature with my BBQ Guru CyberQ II.

After the two hours is up, bring them inside so we can cover them in sauce. Here, I used a 50/50 mix of Blues Hog Original and Blues Hog Tennessee Red sauce.

Now they go back on the cooker (still running at 275) for 15 minutes to set the sauce.

And this is what they?ll look like when they?re done, enjoy!