More Chicken Legs - Better This Time

I made more chicken legs today, but this time it was better!

I originally wanted to smoke the chicken with Apple wood for only an hour on the 22.5" Weber Smokey Mountain and then finish the chicken on my Weber Spirit E-310 gas grill.  But I was tied up doing some work and was forced to leave the chicken in the smoker for over 2 hours.

I didn't monitor the temperature of the smoker this time with the Thermoworks Smoke system, but instead, I just left the chicken in the smoker for two hours and didn't open the lid at all.  I did not use the water pan and put all of the chicken legs on the top grate.  It was packed!  After two hours, I found that the chicken had a small dusting of charcoal dust on the surface.  I decided that I would squirt Apple juice on the chicken to rinse off the charcoal dust.  I can't say all of it was knocked off, but most of it was.

I transferred the chicken to the Weber Spirit E-310 gas grill to finish off the chicken.  The internal temperature of the chicken was around 155 degrees before transferring.  After about 1/2 hour on the grill, the internal temperature had risen to 175 degrees and higher on some pieces.

That's a lot of chicken on the grill.  But it didn't seem to make any difference in how the chicken cooked.

I left the skin on the chicken legs this time whereas the last two cooks I had removed the skin.  I think removing the skin while smoking is a mistake.  Without the skin, the meat takes on a rubbery texture. With the skin on, the skin takes that on instead.  While cooking the chicken directly on the gas grill would allow the skin to be more edible, you don't get the charcoal and smoke flavor unless it's smoked first on the WSM.

I suppose with more testing, I can find a happy medium for the skin.  But for now, this is still better than the past efforts.