today we're making
sweet and smoky
barbecue chicken leg quarters
i'll be seasoning these up
before putting them
on my pit boss austin xl
i'm smoking them at 300 degrees
using apple pellets
to finish them up
i'll be glazing them
in a honey barbecue sauce
the end result is
the perfect sweet and smoky chicken
what's up guys
i'm happy to see you again
today we're gonna be making these chicken quarters
i'm really excited to eat them
i'm going to not talk a whole lot
i'm just going to get right into the video
so the first thing i'm going to do
before i season them is
i'm going to trim them up a little bit
so the only thing that i'm really going to be trimming up
is this little chunk of fat right here
just excess skin and fat and stuff that i really don't want
so this is all that i'm really taking off right here
i just want some of this meat down here to be exposed
and then i'm actually going to come right here
and i'm going to take this off too
so i'm just going to come get that off there's a bone attached to it so it's a little tough
there you go so i took this off too i believe this is the tail i could be wrong if i'm wrong
somebody in the comments please let me know so this is what it looks like when it's all
trimmed up it looks nice and pretty this is what the other side looks like we're leaving the skin on
and again there's really not much to do here now i'm going to come over to this one and
i'm going to flip it over we're just going to repeat the same process so i'm gonna pick up
some of this stuff right here and i'm just gonna trim away this is just excess skin right here it's
not really gonna get crisped up at all or anything it's probably gonna be gristly nasty and gross
so then again going to be taking off this right here just want to kind of square up that edge
and that's it now that these are trimmed up usually what i do is i take some paper
towels and i pat them dry but actually these came out pretty good they're not too wet or
juicy at all usually when you get like chicken breasts or chicken thighs in a pack or even like
a whole chicken in a like a little sealed pack it's full of like whatever solution they use
i don't really know the science behind it if somebody knows let me know in the comments i
think it's absolutely disgusting it really grosses me out so i usually go ahead and wipe it all down
but we're not doing that today so we're just going to get right to seasoning and today i'm going to
be using a mixture of salt pepper garlic just a all-purpose seasoning and i'm also going to be
using malcolm reed's how to barbecue right barbecue rub i just ran out of my barbecue rub from that i
got from kansas city so i have malcolm's i love his barbecue rub we're going to be putting that
on here today so the first layer of seasoning is going to be our all-purpose seasoning and then
the second layer of seasoning is going to be the barbecue seasoning go ahead and get a nice even
coat of your all-purpose seasoning on the backside of the chicken i'm just putting on a light coat
the next thing i'm going to be doing is just kind of get a nice little light dusting of
this barbecue seasoning and this one comes out pretty quick try to get a nice even coat of this
bbq rub on here to make sure that the flavor is consistent all the way through now we're
just gonna take and turn all these over and we're gonna repeat the same process on the other side
now the reason why i started with the other side down first is because when i flip these over i
want to be the last time that i flip over i try to be strategic when i season kind of like when i do
my ribs or brisket whatever side i want to be face down on the grill is the side that i start with so
now we're just taking again come back with another little base layer of our barbecue seasoning i mean
i guess it's not a base layer i don't really know what i'm talking about but the top layer yeah that
looks good to me now that these are all seasoned up it is time to get them out on our smoker
after about 40 minutes we were right up there shooting a little bit past 110. so now it is
time to make our glaze and i'm just going to be completely honest with you i'm following no recipe
i've never done this before i'm just completely making this up so basically what i'm going to do
is i'm going to take an already pre-existing barbecue sauce and i'm going to add honey
to give it a little bit of that sweet flavor to it that i want that's why i'm calling it a honey
barbecue sauce and then what i'm going to do is i'm going to be adding in a little bit of apple
cider vinegar just to kind of give it a little bit of that tang i don't want to be too sweet
or too barbecuey i just want all three of those things mixed together and i think it's gonna
turn out great so i'm gonna go ahead and show you how i make this and i'll let you know if it
turns out good at all here we're using about one cup of sweet baby ray's barbecue sauce
now we're gonna be putting in two tablespoons of honey
and two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar mix that together till everything is well incorporated
so like i said i just completely eyeballed this i used about one cup of my favorite
barbecue sauce about two tablespoons of honey and about two tablespoons
of apple cider vinegar so i'm just gonna go ahead and give this a nice little try
it's really good but honestly i think that by adding in the apple cider vinegar
it still gives it that kind of a tang that barbecue sauce has so i'm actually going to
add in probably about another two tablespoons of honey i'm eyeballing this because this is
not extremely important if you really want you could actually use accurate measurements
all right so this is now how it tastes with four tablespoons of honey two tablespoons of
apple cider vinegar and about one cup of my favorite barbecue sauce
oops
that's actually really good i really like how that is it definitely has a good sweet
flavor to it but it's not like super sweet where you still don't get that kind of a
kick and tang that the barbecue sauce has so i think we're gonna call it good right there
i have this ready now and right before i'm about to go put this glaze on what i'm actually gonna do
is i'm gonna put it in the microwave for about like 20 seconds i don't want to be really hot
but i don't want it to be cold all these things came out of my fridge so i'm gonna warm it up
just until it's about i would say a lukewarm or maybe a little bit past lukewarm and then it'll
be good to go on the chicken on the smoker this is at the 1 hour and 10 minute mark
so our chicken is ready to glaze now i went ahead and i just like i said 20 seconds in
the microwave and 20 seconds just about made it lukewarm it didn't really make it hot or cold
it's just about lukewarm and i'm okay with that so let's go get it on our smoker
there's something really awesome about glazing chicken it really makes me feel like an artist
i don't know what it is about it but i feel like a little kid in our class again i just get to
take this great smelling sauce and put it all over this chicken and i'm probably probably
just a fat guy that really likes to cook but i feel like an artist when i'm doing this
you can maybe call me the the bob ross of barbecue maybe maybe that'll be my nickname
and this is what it should look like when it's all done it looks really really really beautiful
then we're going to let these fly until they're about 175 to 180. our chicken is finally done off
the smoker and if you hear little banging noises in the background or little squeals it's my son
we're recording in the middle of the day our sun is wide awake so have some grace on me i don't have a
professional studio like some of the other cooking channels do so you get me in my house cooking with
my family that's what you get here but this is done this is finished it's absolutely perfect
but i just want to kind of do a quick little recap little rewind of what it was that we did to get to
where we are right now and then i'll slice into this and let you guys see what it looks like
we started out with chicken leg quarters took them out of the pack we didn't have to pat them down
because they were already they're already pretty good and then we just went ahead and trimmed off
a little bit of that underneath side and a little bit of that tail if it is a tail let me know in
the comments if it is then after that we seasoned them with our salt pepper garlic and then went
back over it with a little bit of our barbecue rub cranked up our smoker to 300 degrees and fill it
up with some apple pellets then we went and put our chicken on i went ahead and checked it the
first time at 40 minutes to see what temperature it was if you have a really good probe you could
just probe it honestly and let it ride out up until the temperature that you want to glaze at
which for me was around 165-ish 160 but i don't have a really good probe so i kind of just have
to go out and manually chuck it every so often so i did that at the 40 minute mark then 30 minutes
later i went and checked it again so that at this point we're about an hour and 10 minutes in and it
was up at the right temperature for me to go ahead and glaze it so i got the glaze on there waited
about another 10-15 minutes and the temperature was right up in that 175 range which is where
i personally want it uh for the thighs and drumsticks so that's what i went ahead and did
after that we pulled it off my wife and i took a bunch of crazy b-roll shots that you saw at the
beginning of the video let me know in the comments if you guys like that kind of stuff we want to be
creative with how we make our videos but now we are finally here i'm going to go ahead and slice
into this so the way that i slice into it is this is the thigh and this is the drumstick and there's
a little a little knob right up here of cartilage so if you kind of take your knife and come on say
right about here and angle it and you can kind of just come and cut straight down like that
and you'll see there there's a little bit of cartilage uh some of that could probably
just come right out but there you go there you have it you have your drumstick if you guys can
see the smoke is still coming out of this but hey i'm gonna go ahead and try a bite anyway
wow so i actually just went ahead and i only took a little bite out of here because this is like
piping hot but i will say that this turned out really really good and i kind of did
an experiment on a few different things so i wasn't exactly sure how it was going to turn out
and now that it's cooked i actually think i could have put in a little bit more honey
when i tried the sauce itself yes of course it had that kind of a sweet taste to it with the four
tablespoons of honey but once it's on there it's a glaze it gets caramelized it gets a little bit
of that smoke infusion and it sits on the chicken and you take a big bite i really forgot like how
little of like the glaze is on the outside compared to the whole bite of chicken so
i think you could probably even go with six maybe seven maybe eight tablespoons of honey
and about one cup of barbecue sauce and i would probably keep two tablespoons for the apple cider
vinegar i don't think you need to go more than that but now i took a bite of the drumstick i'm
gonna go ahead and take a bite of this thigh and this looks this looks really nice and good
that glaze really does it i might probably have stuff all over my face i have stuff all
my fingers but that glaze really does it really good this chicken would have been fine if it
just had the rub on there it has a nice smoke flavor but yeah i think it's great but hey i
gotta get my hands cleaned up i gotta eat dinner my kid's getting a little cranky so
i'm not to let you guys go i hope you've enjoyed this video if you try this recipe
please leave a comment down below let me know how it comes out i love hearing your guys's feedback
whether it's good or bad i hope you guys have a great day and i will see you in the next video
you