Butter-Bath Competition Chicken Thighs
In today's recipe, we're making Butter-Bath Chicken Thighs in the Pit Barrel Cooker. We will start by brining the chicken thighs overnight. The next day, we’ll season the chicken with Jack Stack rub, smoke the thights in the Pit Barrel Cooker and then finish the chicken with a little Jack Stack BBQ Sauce and honey.
Brine Ingredients
- 1 gallon water
- 1 cup Kosher salt
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup Rhino Peri-Peri hot sauce (optional)
Protein Ingredients
- 10 bone-in chicken thighs
- Jack Stack BBQ Rub to taste
- 2-3 sticks melted butter (in the video, I started with 4 sticks of butter, but did not need this amount).
- ½ bottle Jack Stack BBQ Sauce
- 8 ounces Honey
Procedure
- Mix brine ingredients in a large pot until the sugar and salt are dissolved.
- Place the chicken in the brine and put in the refrigerator overnight.
- Remove the chicken from the brine and pat dry with paper towels.
- Pour the melted butter in a disposable aluminum pan and add the chicken. Make sure the butter does not exceed half way up on the chicken.
- Season with the Jack Stack rub (or your favorite chicken seasoning).
- Place the pan of chicken things in the Pit Barrel Cooker and cook for 1 hour.
- After an hour remove the pan with chicken thighs from the Pit Barrel Cooker. Remove the chicken thighs from the butter bath and discard the butter batch.
- Mix equal parts of Jack Stack BBQ Sauce and honey in a bowl.
- Sauce each chicken thigh and place back on the Pit Barrel Cooker, direct on the grill grate.
- Sprinkle a little of the Jack Stack rub on each piece of chicken. Put the lid back on the Pit Barrel Cooker and continue cooking the chicken until it reaches an internal temperature of 170 degrees F (for chicken thighs). For this cook the time was an additional 15 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and let rest 10 minutes before serving.
Watch our Butter-Batch Chicken Thighs video to see the step-by-step recipe instructions.
