Page 29 - Barbecue Chicken Made Easy
P. 29
The lower the temperature the moister the meat. The texture is also different. This information is especially pertinent when cooking sous vide, as discussed below.
Chicken is more moist at 160°F than 165°F. So we recommend 160°F for 12 seconds for a finished temperature.
And yes, you can poke it many times with a thermometer and it will not dry out. Meat is about 75% water, so a 4-pound bird is about 3 pounds of water. A few drops escaping from poking a thermometer into the meat will not make your bird dry.
Let’s bust a big myth
How many times have you read “cook chicken until the juices run clear?” It’s a myth and it lives in hundreds of cookbooks and thousands of websites.
Nothing is more embarrassing than having to take pink meat off a guests’ plates and run it back out to the grill while they discard the “contaminated” side dishes and get clean plates. Been there done that?
