How to Make Grilled Spice-Rubbed Chicken Drumsticks

[Music]most recipes for grilled chicken focusonly on the chicken breast andcompletely ignore the other parts inparticular the lowly drumstick yet thedrumstick has a lot going for it it’sless expensive it’s made of juicy darkmeat and it comes with its own handlebut you can’t just grill a drumstick asyou would a chicken breastoh you’ll end up with this ooh flabbygross skin the meats usually prettytough and Oh worst fart gets a littlebloody right there next to the bone it’skind of grossso today Dan is gonna show us how togrill a drumstick the right way I’m soexcited we’re doing this this is like myoriginal chicken cut like the drumstickas a kid you just always want to eatthat it’s always in cartoons and itlooks really greatbut then you go to barbecues now and youalways avoid it right because it’s gonnabe like that so we’re gonna finally givedrumsticks they’re due and it’s reallyeasy we’re gonna start with five poundswhich is really easy buy at thesupermarket there’s no prep involved thefirst step is we’re actually going tobrine them okay you know it’s dark meateven though it’s dark meat we usuallyreserve that for white meat we want thisto be the ultimate drumstick recipe andso what we’re actually gonna do is cookthem to a slightly higher temperaturethan we normally would really break downthat top collagen so we won’t have chewymeat we’ll have a nice juicy tender meatwe’re gonna start with two quarts ofcold water and a half a cup of tablesalt because of that higher temperaturewe have a tendency to lose some of thatmoisture so we’re gonna try and trapmore of it with a brine you’re lookingto see if all the salt is dissolved yesand that’s actually a pretty importantstep it is a very important step so ifit’s not dissolved it’s not gonna domuch work as a brine I remember thefirst time I brinedI totally didn’t let dissolve and when Iput it in the zipper lock bag and thenwhen I was done it was like sludge andit wasn’t brined at all it was bread atall it was just sitting in water foryeah yeah and so when it turns basicallyclear when you can see through it againyou know that you’ve dissolved it all inthere so we’re just gonna transfer theseover we’re gonna brine these for 30 to60 minutes that’s pretty fast it is andit’s the time it takes us to get therest of prep done and get the grillgoing so it’s not a big deal so this isgonna be in the refrigerator for thattime I’m gonna do it once we finishedwith our rub all right put this asidehere so we want this to be superapproachable and something you add toyour repertoire right so the flavorprofile we’re going for is classicbarbecue we’re gonna achieve that bydoing a rub so we’re gonna start withthree tablespoons of brown sugar we needsweetness and the sugars gonna helparound a little bit on the grill as wellnext up we have a tablespoon of paprikayou gotta have paprika in your barbecuerub it’s like a rule I think it’s a lawisn’t itso then we’ve also got a tablespoon ofchili powder two teaspoons of garlicpowder whoo hello that’s a lot the thingis this is the place to use garlicpowder right like this is the flavorprofile that you expect it in it workshere it’s not the garlic you always wantto use but it’s perfect for a rub I alsohave 3/4 of a teaspoon of table salt 3/4of teaspoon of ground black pepper and1/4 teaspoon of cayenne all right thoseare all pantry friendly ingredients andit’s classic right I mean you couldalmost taste what this is gonna be likebefore I even put it on the chickenwe’re just gonna mix it up here I likethat you’re using the whisk to put a dryrub because you’re actually justbreaking up the sugar so then it mixesnicely with the spices so Julie I brinedthese for the full hour because I reallywants me to be extra juicy just for youthank you you’re welcomeso anyway I took them out and I’m justgonna Pat them dry here you want alittle bit of moisture on the surface orrub sticks to them but we don’t wantthem to be too wet so we’ve got our ourrub here I’m gonna transfer it to alarge plate it’s gonna make a lot easierto dredge all of them in there just kindof spread it out like this for thedredging process it’s not that difficultbut there are there’s a couple littletricks so a lot of times the skin canget peeled back like this and you get alot of flavor on the meat which is nicebut it tends to over cook on the grillso you wanna make sure that skin is allthe way down there and then what I’mgonna do is just kind of roll it aroundtry and get it on as much of thedrumstick as I can sometimes it’s hardto get the handle while you’re doingthis but we’ll have a little bit leftover that we can go through and justcover those as much flavor as possiblein there and then I just pad off anyexcess which is gonna fall off later onthe grill anyway I’d rather have a hereand then get to use it mmm that looksgood already right we thought aboutglazes for these but when you’re eatingsomething out of handsticky glazes are coming kind of a messthough the rub really is nice for thatokay so I’m just gonna finish the restthese up and we’re gonna head out to thegrill sounds good we’ve got our gasgrill preheating for about 15 minutesover high heat on all of the burners ohyou can see the heat coming up it’s veryhot we’re not gonna cook the drumsticksdirectly over this intense heat we saw alot of recipes that did somethingsimilar where it’s over a medium-highheat the whole timeeasy formula to remember just throw themon but doesn’t produce very gooddrumsticks one of the big reasons is werender a lot of fat from the skin and ifit’s right over the heat it just flaresup also tends to overcook them so we’regonna use a to heat method here and thefirst thing we’re gonna do is kill thesetwo burners so we’ve got our primaryburner on and these are off when you’renice indirect cooking first before I dothat I’m gonna scrape and clean thegrill okay and I have a paper towel withjust a little bit of vegetable oil hereand I run it right over the grates youwant to do a really thorough job becauseskin has a tendency to stick a bit morethan other things so by putting the oilon the hot grill grates you’re actuallymaking more of a nonstick surface allright time to put the chicken on so thisis our primary brender nice and hotwe’re gonna go right next to it here nowyou can see I orient them kind ofopposite so they Nestle in really nicelyyou can fit a lot of chicken on onegrill you could really smell thosespices as soon as they hit the grill soI’m gonna cover this now and we’re gonnago for about 25 minutes before we flipthem cooking them really nice and gentlyalright okay so that’s been 25 minuteswhew these guys over here haven’t beencooking quite as fast as these onesbecause they’re not as close to the heatsource so we’re just gonna flip flop andthe way I like to do that is first movethem out of the way over here and thenslide these over ahvery organized looks like something youfigured out after you did it wrong onceor twice yeah so we’re gonna close thisand continue to cook until the chickenregisters 185 to 190 degrees and that’swell over the safe temperature we needfor chicken of 160 to 165 but duringthat time at the higher temperature itmakes a really big difference breaksdown a lot of that collagen into reallysupple gelatin so they’re nice and juicyand tender takes another 25 or 30minutes alright so the total cookingtime is a little less than an hourthat’s right it’s been another 25minutes I’m gonna take a look here nolook good they don’t really do look goodstill not super pretty cuz we’ve got onemore step to do but I want to take thetemp here so we’re gonna go into thethickest part we’re looking for 185degrees to 190 degrees and that’sperfect right there on the nose oh niceand hot so now I’m gonna transfer themto the hot side of the grill this burnwe pound on the whole timereally nice crisping in char so it’snothing I take about five minutes hereto get them nice and crisp all over andI’ll keep rotating as we go be nice andbeautiful on all sides okay those lookamazing all right let’s get him off youdon’t want to mess around while they’reon the hots idea they Brown reallyquickly oh definitely yeah we renderedall that fat so it crisps up reallyquickly you would want to pay closeattention at this point yeah not a timeto walk away no looks so good so nowwe’re gonna cover them with foil bringthem inside let them rest a coupleminutes and then it’s time to eat soundsgoodcan I do the big reveal please all righthello gorgeous chicken mm-hmm you justhave to convince people out yourbarbecue that these aren’t thedrumsticks they’re used to right oncethey get into him they they’re gone I’mjust gonna serve you up right there’snothing left to say at this point it’sreally it’s an eating game at this pointI think we don’t actually have anyutensils here because drumsticks they’restraight-up got handles right Oh mm-hmmthat’s so good that’s actually tender Ilike this you know it’s it’s not spicyit’s just a little hint a little floralmm-hmm it’s like you’re not knowing itoff the bone like normally are with withthe drumsticks it’s tender it’s reallyjuicy from that brine in the skin youcan eat it it’s not flabby it’s nice andrendered mmm cooking up to 185 190 itsounds really high but it makes it sotender it’s cooked all the way to thebone and that bloody bone stuff and thenthe Brian really keeps it juicy too yeahit’s very juicy these are fantasticthank you Dan welcome to make theultimate grilled drumsticks grind themfor 30 minutes then coat with a simplespice rub build a two-level fire startthe chicken on the cool side then moveit to the hot side of the grill tofinish and there you have it fromAmerica’s Test Kitchen to your kitchenthe ultimate recipe for grilledspice-rubbed chicken drumsticksthese are darned cute and good I’venever heard you say that beforethanks for watching America’s TestKitchen what you think we’ll leave acomment and let us know which recipesyou’re excited to make or you can justsay hello 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