Today I'm doing a beginner's guide to grilling
chicken thighs, which is one of my favorite meats and it's real easy to do. Hi I'm Ryan from the
Grill Top Experience helping you cook with fire like a pro and one of those things is starting
with easy replicable recipes and chicken thighs is where it's at. I always tell people to start
with chicken thighs because it teaches you all the right lessons and how to manage your fire but
it's really forgiving and so it's hard to mess up so you can still enjoy dinner as you're learning
through the process. Let me show you two different recipes one of them is if you have a lot of time
and preparation and being able to get that perfect flavor all the way through the chicken. The other
one is if you're short on time and got to get dinner out right now, and that's gonna be on the
gas grill. Let's go ahead and get started I'm starting with the gas grill because most people
have one. It's the most common grill in America and it's pretty easy to use because you can
manage the fire with just the turn of a button. For this one we're going to set up
for indirect I've got a three burner, so that means I'm going to put all the meat
in the middle, higher heat on the outside, with lower heat in the middle and that's
going to help avoid some of those flare-ups. Most chicken thighs that you purchase need to be
trimmed this one has a bunch of extra skin that you don't want to leave on there the other thing
to remove is any big chunks of fat that won't render well. You wouldn't want this for your first
bite so we're going to go ahead and remove it. Do the same thing for the other thighs as well. I sent Mrs. GTE to get some Killer Hogs Barbecue
rub and she came back with ChickaLicka Bam Bam. We both really liked it, but you can use whatever
your favorite rub is. The biggest benefit of this method is it's really easy to switch things up
to change the flavor profile to the one that you want. This rub doesn't have much salt
so I added just a bit directly on the skin. Chicken thighs stick to these grates like bare
skin on vinyl seats in the summer. So I coat them with a thin layer of oil right before I put the
meat on and it usually keeps things from sticking. Putting the meat over the low
burner should avoid flare-ups, but having the other burners turned up higher will
keep the temperatures up to crisp up the skin. A dome temperature of around 400 degrees
Fahrenheit or 205 degrees Celsius is about right. After a few minutes of cooking give them a turn.
Just to make sure they're not sticking. The one thing that everybody needs when they're cooking
chicken is a good instant read thermometer and I'm going to link to the one that I like to use
down in the description below in case you're looking for one. They're pretty inexpensive you
need a decent one on amazon for 20 to 30 dollars. The reason why it's so important is because you
want to get to 175 degrees Fahrenheit to make sure that it's safe to eat and it's about the perfect
tenderness when it reaches that temperature. You can get an idea of how the temperature
is going based on the way the skin looks, but it's not a perfect tell. The instant read is
the safest and best way. I know it's tempting to just check one and consider them all done, but
you need to check each piece of meat. They're different sizes and are going to cook at different
rates. Remember, you aren't checking the skin temperature. Get that probe into the center of the
meat but away from any bones for an accurate read. Chicken thighs are pretty forgiving and it'll be
okay if you go over just a little bit. I also like to turn up the heat and put the chicken skin side
down to help render the last bit of fat from the skin and get it extra crispy. Just watch things
carefully just to make sure that you don't get a flare up and ruin your work. These came out great
with bite through skin and were a big hit around the house if I have the time I'll always go to
my kettle and use charcoal and real wood to be able to maximize the flavor, but it's a bit of an
investment. It takes a little longer to get the kettle up to steam and ready to cook and get good
smoke, but I also have some chicken marinating inside. I'll quickly show you how I set that
up. Before we talk about setting up the kettle this chicken needed to be trimmed as well and it
really depends on the job that the butcher did. This batch had more trimming than I'm used to and
sometimes you'll barely need to trim your chicken at all. Marinating your chicken enhances the
flavor and can help tenderize the meat, and I've shown a few different ways of doing that on this
channel, that included yogurt or the shoyu chicken that I'm making here. People have asked if you can
use another brand of soy sauce or if it has to be Aloha Shoyu, I've tried them and the other
brands are not nearly as good for this recipe. This recipe is also pretty common in Hawaiian
plate lunch and you almost always see it in Hawaiian backyard barbecues. The trick here is
to not skimp out on the marinade time plan on 8 hours or as long as overnight for best results.
However if using boneless skinless thighs you can get away with a couple of hours and a
link to that video in the description below. Setting up the kettle is easy but takes a little
bit of preparation and practice to get it right. To get the right temperatures, I tossed three
quarters of a chimney of lit charcoal on one side of the kettle, to give me a
hot and a warm zone for cooking. The vent settings are usually closed by
about half on the top and the bottom. Put the chicken on the cooler side of the grill,
and you won't have any flare-ups because it's not over the fire. You still get the benefits of
the convection heat and the smoke coming off the charcoal without the risk. A common question that
I get when I tell people what I've cooked is: Did you smoke it? Smoking generally means cooking at
225 degrees Fahrenheit for an extended period of time and that is bad news for chicken. You almost
always end up with a gummy skin that'll come right off the chicken thighs, but if you cook a
little bit higher but still over charcoal and wood you can get that same smoke flavor into the meat
and get the crispy skin that everybody craves. After about an hour and once the chicken
thighs are almost up to temperature, remember we're shooting for 175 degrees
Fahrenheit. I put them directly over the fire to get a bit of char to help render
that skin. Your luck can change very quickly though and you're going to watch everything very
closely to make sure it doesn't burn even though. The fire's burned down watch how quickly
the skin burns on this one chicken thigh> The grill grates had a chance to heat up and
that burned the skin rather than crisping it. Try to find a spot over the charcoal that is a
bit cooler and you're going to get great results. Put them back on the indirect side,
and I took them off when they each reached 175 degrees Fahrenheit. Just
like that, you've learned how to make chicken thighs a couple of different ways.
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These are really good!