Smoked BBQ Chicken Legs: Old School VS. New School...Which is better? | Ash Kickin' BBQ

how you doing I'm Darren with Ash kicking barbecue if this is your first time to the channel then welcome if you've been here before then welcome back today we are talking barbecue chicken legs but we're doing a battle of old school versus new school now the newest trend is a lot of people are butterflying their chicken legs and cooking them that way they're saying it allows more texture quicker cooking and a better overall eating experience now I'm a big fan of barbecue chicken so I'm really excited to test this Theory out so let's bring in and show you how we're going to prep our barbecue chicken legs all right so here's our chicken legs and for the old school ones we're just going to keep them very simple and for the quote unquote new school ones all we're going to do is just butterfly these so we're just finding the bone here taking a sharp knife and just getting in there and slicing right down we just want to find the bone and Slice on either side of it like so and there you go that's what it's going to look like nice and butterflied we've got our skin up here we're going to get it nice and seasoned up and these are definitely going to cook cooker than these ones but I'm saving the smaller ones for the old school method so hopefully they'll get done around the same time but yeah pretty simple so I'm gonna get the rest of these trimmed up and I'll bring you back all right and there we go we have all three of our new school ones ready to go so I'm just going to flip those over and now I'm just going to come in with our seasoning we're going to be using Tailgaters Barbecue Party rub as the base rub so we'll just season these up with a light layer flip them over hit the other side next we're going to come in with my ash kicking barbecue honey Chipotle rub and we're just going to repeat the process and if you haven't tried this combination on chicken I highly recommend it it is a game changer Award winner whatever you want to call it it's fantastic all right so now the idea behind this concept is is we're going to get a little more texture we're going to get a little more crispiness on these butterflied ones and then these are just your run-of-the-mill barbecue chicken which I happen to love so it'll be interesting to see which one's better but for now we're going to get these out onto the Lone Star Girls pellet grill I got it set for 300 degrees and we're just going to let these go I'll come out and check them after a half hour probably flip them over just so everything's cooking evenly then once they're close to getting done we'll sauce them up and let that sauce caramelize on it and give it a taste test and see which one's better old school or new school barbecue chicken I'm excited to try these so let's get out to the Lone Star grills all right so we have the Lone Star grills running it's firing up to 300 I'm just going to get these on now because in my opinion can't get them on too early so I'm gonna get these ones right there and I kind of have them over here which is the fire pot which is just going to be a little bit hotter which is fine and then I'm going to take the skin side and go down on these just so we can get try and get that skin extra nice and crispy if you want to do this over direct Flames or you know a kettle or a PK grill or something like that you definitely could it'd be some good flavor on there but we're just running on the Lone Star today I just want to keep everything nice and simple and just see which chicken is better you can see it's looking nice and good so I'm gonna get this shut down we'll come back and check it in about 30 minutes see how they're looking give them a flip maybe check the temperature I don't know how long these are going to take so we're just going to kind of play it by ear the nice thing about these drumsticks is they can withstand a higher temperature 180 190 200 degrees they're still going to be delicious due to all the fat content in there we want to get this skin nice and crispy so we will see you guys in about 30 minutes all right so it has been 30 minutes running at 300 degrees we're just going to get these chicken legs flipped over you can see we have some nice crispiness on there these are looking awesome I'm gonna get them all flipped over yeah those look really really good nice smoke rolling in there check the temps you were at about 144 degrees in these and about 149 in these so really 148 there so really not that much difference which is kind of surprising I was anticipating that these were going to be a little bit higher but hey that's all right so I'm just going to give these another 30 minutes you know like I said this these legs can handle the higher temperatures and they're still going to be juicy they're still going to be fantastic so I'll let these go another half hour we'll get some sauce on them let that sauce caramelize and we're going to jump in and see how these are so hey we'll see you in 30 minutes all right so it has been 30 more minutes I just tempt these they're all at about 175 180 which is absolutely perfect now we're just going to go ahead and hit them with a little bit of barbecue sauce and I love the way this sauce smells when it hits the plate down there starts steaming back up this is going to get nice and caramelized on there we'll get these flipped over and we're going to Sauce the other side now there's nothing better in the summertime than barbecue chicken I'm telling you right now all right and those are looking good we're gonna get this cooker shut down let them go for about five minutes let this sauce caramelize on we're gonna get them off let them cool a little bit and we're gonna dive in and do the taste test all right so it's been about five minutes you can see that that sauce is looking nice and caramelized I'm gonna get these off we're gonna get them inside let them cool and I can't wait to try and see if there's a difference between old school versus New School yeah that's beautiful barbecue chicken also looking pretty good so I'm gonna get these in let them cool and we'll see you guys in a few minutes all right guys so it is time New School versus old school old school versus new school I can't wait to try and see if there's a difference you know I'm keeping it old school for the first taste test smells fantastic nice smoke flavor from that Lone Star Girls pellet grill you can smell the honey Chipotle my ash kicking barbecue honey Chipotle and that Tailgaters Barbecue Party rub barbecue sauce sticky delicious barbecue chicken that we all know and love especially in the summertime cheers just dripping with moisture like I said these were taken to about 180 degrees that dark meat can handle it I mean there is just so much moisture in these things this is fantastic the caramelized sauce is just chef's kiss I absolutely love it now let's go ahead and try the new school cheers all right guys so they're both fantastic the flavor profile is both the same I will say that I think the old school way just leaving them whole these are a bit juicier and in fact I can guarantee there's more moisture in here these this thing was just oozing with moisture when I've been into it this one's still nice and juicy the texture is just a little bit different on the chicken and that could just be the chicken I guess you know I'll try one more for sake of argument this is a nice one nice crispy bit here yeah so there is definitely a textural difference between these two I'm not saying it's good or it's bad either way however I just feel like the whole drumsticks are a little bit softer and these will tempt out at about the same so I don't know the new school method I will say is a little bit easier to eat because everything is on one side of the bone you don't got to sit and fighter on the bone you can just take a nice big bite and get a solid chunk of meat yeah they both have wonderful flavor if I'm giving it to anyone I'm giving it to the old school method just because it is a lot juicier but you know what I really want to try these again over direct heat that way all these little bits and pieces can get really nice and crispy because I think the texture in there would be super super good you know and you just don't get that on a pellet grill which is fine because I like pellet grill chicken I don't like my chicken overly smoked because smokes an ingredient right so but yeah this is really good chicken and I'm down to try it again if I'm giving a winner to anyone today though it's the old school method you know sometimes old school is just better school and that's just how it is so guys go ahead make them for yourself let me know which one you think is better old school new school come back leave a comment and guys I hope you enjoyed this video if you did be sure to like subscribe ring that Bell stay safe and we will see you next time

Channel: Ash Kickin' BBQ

Views: 15,996

Keywords: smoked chicken, bbq chicken, barbecue chicken, ash kickin bbq, barbecue chicken recipe, pellet grill, smoked chicken recipe, smoked chicken legs, smoked chicken drumsticks, bbq chicken legs, ash kickin bbq chicken, butterflied chicken legs, chicken on a pellet grill, chicken on a pellet smoker, best bbq chicken, lone star grillz pellet smoker, lone star grillz pellet grill, bbq chicken on the grill, old school bbq chicken, grilled chicken, smoked bbq chicken legs

Id: xiFyQ0f5in4

Length: 8min 46sec (526 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 30 2023