Sous vide half chicken

[Josh71]

In my thread about liquid smoke, someone posted smoke chicken recipe from ChefSteps:

 

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/smokerless-smoked-chicken

 

I am thinking to use sous vide instead of low-temperature-oven (90C), because I don't trust my oven can hold the temperature stable. 

 

So, here is the plan:

 

- Cut the whole chicken into 2 parts half-chicken

- Make smokey brine: water + liquid smoke + salt

- Brine the half-chicken (overnight???)

- Bag the chicken prepare for sous vide

- Sous vide the chicken ...

 

After sous vide finished:

 

- Pat dry the chicken

- Glaze with some BBQ sauce (add liquid smoke as needed)

- Broil under very hot oven (395F / 202C) to brown and crisp the skin

 

My question, what would be the temperature and time to sous vide half chiken?

 

Chicken breast usually at 150F / 65C for about 1 hour.

Chicken thigh usually at 165F / 74C for about 1 hour.

 

I am thinking, for half-chicken is at the average of that

 

158F / 70C for let say 1,5 hour.

 

And the brining time, overnight is not too much? I don't want too much smoke flavor

 

What do you think?

Edited August 24, 2015 by Josh71 (log)

[Simon Lewinson]

Difficult to give a time and temp,that will work for both ends of the bird. I would quarter it and do the breast at 56C for 60 minutes, thigh for 62C for 80-90 minutes.

Simon

[Shalmanese]

Sous vide is cooking in a 100% humidity environment so the skin won't lose any moisture and subsequent crisping will be much harder. The reason to cook in the oven is to dehydrate the exterior and get crackling crisp skin. I would simply set the oven to as low as it can go and temp the thighs and pull it out once the thighs hit 65C. If you want to make broiled sous vide chicken, then make sous vide broiled chicken but understand that it will be a very different end result than what's demonstrated in that recipe.

[Josh71]

Sous vide is cooking in a 100% humidity environment so the skin won't lose any moisture and subsequent crisping will be much harder. The reason to cook in the oven is to dehydrate the exterior and get crackling crisp skin. I would simply set the oven to as low as it can go and temp the thighs and pull it out once the thighs hit 65C. If you want to make broiled sous vide chicken, then make sous vide broiled chicken but understand that it will be a very different end result than what's demonstrated in that recipe.

 

Thanks for the input.

 

I do have that common meat thermometer, the thing like "needle" made from metal. 

 

So, I can simply insert the needle in the thickest part of the thigh, put it in the oven, and wait till it reach 65C, and it's done?

 

Can I leave the thermometer attached like that throughout the cooking process? 

 

Well, I do have other kind of thermometer, a digital one, like Thermapen but cheaper version