How do you make great grilled BBQ'd chicken? (with bone)?!
Answers: I can grill boneless chicken easily and quickly, but when I get a lot of chicken with the bone still in I have trouble grilling it. I especially love bbq'd grilled chicken, but when someone else cooks it! When I make it it's raw in the middle and burnt on the outside!! Gag! What am I doing wrong?!? Help!
It sounds like what your experiencing is that your burning your B.B.Q. sauce. The problem is that "sugar" burns easily. B.B.Q. sauce has alot of sugar. It's not really neccesary to have the sauce on your chicken right from the start.
Since your cooking chicken with the bone in, your going to need to cook it longer than boneless anyway. Boneless chicken has been cut open, so its spread out and thinner, With the bone in, it's thicker so it won't cook as easily. Also, if you don't cook it well enough, you'll get that blood at the bone on your drumsticks and thighs.
I wish I knew if you were using gas or charcoal. But anyhow, try to adjust your fire to about medium-low. Cook it slow, if your fire is to hot, you'll cook the outside too soon, by the time the center is cooked, the outside will be burned.
The absolute most horrid thing you can do when open flame cooking is to allow the meats' drippings to land on the fire. First of all, if it's alot, it will flame up and you'll burn. Secondly, that grease and oil on the fire will smoke, that smoke tastes terrible and the flavor will be on your meat.
If you get enough of that, it will ruin it completely.
Just a little isn't going to hurt, but the goal is to try and prevent grease smoke as much as possible. Grease smoke is your arch enemy. Treat it as such. It's also highly carcinogenic(cancer causing)
Chicken, drips quite a bit. Chicken has pretty much fat. It's very tender fat, so it melts easily and makes alot of dripping oil. (Not nearly as much as duck though. I had more oil than the Saudi's, from just 4 ducks. Non on the charcoals though. You'll need experience for those)
The more intense your heat, the more grease will drip off your chicken.
Then, that cycle starts to compound.
The grease makes the fire bigger and hotter, which in turn melts more fat, and so on, and so forth, until it's just all completely out of control. Then you'll be "eating out" after all. Right after you've put the empty fire extinguisher in the trash, along with all your white, powdery chicken.
At the market, you can find some good off the shelf seasonings/rubs. Find the ones mixed specialy for your application(chicken). If you live where there's a B.B.Q. Galore, even better, they have alot of really good ones. You can have your chicken seasoned right from the start.
Then maybe about half way through the cooking process you can start brushing on the Q. sauce. Once you get to where the meat is fully cooked, if the sauce is not browned, or thickened and as sticky as you'd like it.
No problem, you've got breathing room now. The meat is done, so you can turn the heat up high. The sugar in the Q. cooks and burns fast, so you can get it to where you'd like it, quickly. As long as you cooked the chicken slow enough, it should be juicy enough to where you still won't dry it out.
If things start getting a little out of control, don't panic, get your meat off.
Thats what I meant by breathing room, you can abort your improvisation at the end cuz the meat is done already. Gives you room to experiment.
If you want to make your own seasonings,dry rubs B.B.Q. sauces, and other goodies from scratch.
Google "ring of smoke", or "the smoke ring".
Go to that site, B.B.Q. enthusiasts are quite generous people, you'll find many posted recipes and Q'ing secrets. They're not going to give up competition secrets, of course.
B.B.Q. enthusiasts are also very "007"ish, secretive in their operations. But thats usualy only with their competition secrets. Your a beginner, you'll get tons of useful info.
If you cook it in the oven first, the problem is you'll hardly get any of that Q'd, outdoor, open flame flavor. Not to mention, that you won't learn how to get it right on the grate, from raw to cooked. A little good info, and a little practice is all you need. Using your oven, is defeating the whole purpose. Besides, doing it that way is for wimps, meet the challenge of the fire, and make great meat. If you don't get past chicken, you'll never do pork ribs.
Unless you do them like many people. "Boil" first.
Ha,ha. The "bruthas" in the south would laugh em out of town.
Good Luck,
let me know how it turns out.
lower the temp and cover the grill. this is what makes sure the outside is not burnt and cooked through in the middle
It's a common problem -
Basically the fire is too hot - or your meat is too close to the heat That's why the outside gets burned & Inside is raw. Or it could just be grease induced flare ups.
But with a grill - it can be challenging to lower the heat enough in these situations. How challenging depends on your grill - gas or charcoal - budget or fancy.... etc... . It can be done most of the time easier on charcoal grill - because the flame control on most budget grills isn't very good (there's only nuclear, high or off.) ANd maybe your meat is causing flare ups too that burn the outside.
So the answer really lies in flame control - to cook a bit slower.
But here's an easy fix if you can't tame your flames properly - move your meat off the direct heat to begin with (IE higher up or too the side) and/or start your chicken while it is wrapped foil. Then after it has cooked 1/2 way or more take off the foil and put mor of your "secrect" sauce on and put it over direct heat (after you drain the grease off - you dont want flare ups)
The slight charring of the sauce is what makes it GOOD - you just have to manage the "burn".
ANd don't forget to turn the meat a few times too to get it evenly cooked - a flat peice of meat only has 2 sides - but a leg or thigh with bones has more than just 2 sides....so turn it more than 1 time.
Good luck.
Here's a sure fire way to solve your problem! Precook the chicken in the oven & then just put it on the grill for the BBQ flavor!
What you would do is cook with or without BBQ sauce in the oven until done. Say, in a pan, covered with foil on 350 for about 45 mins to an hour & then a quick stint (couple of mins, tops per side) on the BBQ & serve.
Good luck!