Trailblazer Grill Notes - Boneless Chicken Strips - Wednesday, 22 July 2020

[Sscottfitz]

Yet another mid week gilling experiment on the Trailblazer. Today's selection, boneless chicken strips......Idea here is being with various cuts, some smaller and thinner than others how to best smoke first, and then cook at a higher temp on the RT-340. Mostly it helps me learn both the grill and cooking techniques as I’m NOT a very accomplished “cooker”…..that’s actually quite an understatement…..<grin>

• Grill Location: Hot Springs Village, AR.; 34 37 60.0N 92 54 55.4W - a ”Hump Day” cloudy & stormy (pop-ups) afternoon experiment with Chicken Strips. Most importantly, first grill under the New Grill Gazebo, it is now up and operational, and with storms both to the south and north of us, today is a perfect test for its utility.
• Weather at time of Grill: Cloudy with Pop-up thunderstorms all around…..Temp ~80F, Humidity ~86%
• Total Grill Time: ~55 Min. (~9 min transition to first temp High Smoke/180F, ~30 min smoke time, ~9 min transition to to 2nd temp, ~7 min @400)
  • Grill Start to Initial Smoke Target Temp Xtreme Smoke/180F: 87 to 180 ~9 min
  • Grill up to “Final Cooking Heat” Target Temp 400: 180 to 400 ~9 Min (17:06 start, achieved 400 at 17:15)
• Total Event Time: ~2 hr, 56 Min. Includes chicken strip prep time (~2 hrs), and total grill time.
• Grill Plates: Yes, 2x Flat Side Up for last part of cook
• Temp Probes Used”. Yes x2
• Pellets Used: Rec Tec Ultimate Blend

• Meat & Meat Prep
  • Meat: 12 x Small Boneless Chicken Strips, (Pre-packaged) from Brookshire’s (not sure of weight)
  • Total Meat Prep Time: ~2 hrs., Grill Mates Garlic, Herb, & Wine Marinade Mix, marinated in refrigerator.
  • Meat on at 16:34 CDT, at 53~54F, meat temp at end of smoking period: ~105F, (17:04). set off and covered while grill temps heated up
  • Meat back on Grill Plates at 17:15 CDT,
  • Meat on the Grill Plates ~3.5min per side, Meat at ~168F (Target 165F) when removed from Grill plates.

Sides:

• Mixed greens, blue berries, red onion salad, with honey mustard dressing, pine nuts, & Gorgonzola Cheese topping (normally would have used Feta, but we were out…..)
• Panko-Parmesan Crusted Zuccini Fries - cooked in oven parallel to chicken stips grill on the Trailblazer (Wife Note: Used regular bread crumbs for breading as we didn’t have any Panko……(I wouldn’t know a “Panko” if it bit me in the @$$….) - not sure that impacted that taste - they were quite good…..
• Buttermilk-Ranch dressing used as a dip for both the Chicken strips and Zucchini fries.

Misc Grill Observations - all times are CDT

• Used basic stainless steel grill during the smoking period, and grill plate (right side) for the final chicken strip cooking action
• Final Cooking Temp 400 seems to be about right for this cut of chicken and this grill
• Grill did a great job of holding the 180F temps during the smoking part of the cook - first time we’ve used the lowest (Extreme Smoke) temp setting.
• Used a both temp probes on various strips, both during smoking period and grill plate period.

General Comments:

• Cook wasn’t BAD….but certainly has some room for improvement. Thinking maybe the final grill temp should have been 350 vice the 400. Chicken may have been just a hair over cooked. Also could have marinated the chicken strips a little longer - 6~8 hrs vice the 2 hrs we used.
• Grill performance was very consistent. Both at low & higher temps.
• Grill Support tool was a 2016 Rodney Strong Pinot Noir - if you like Pinots, you should try this one, its pretty darn good - it was better than the chicken….