Sweet Tea Brine Smoked Chicken

Ingredients needed to make Sweet Brined Smoked Chicken

• Chicken: for this recipe I used chicken leg quarters, but any part of the chicken will work. Brine a whole chicken if you like.

• Black tea: stay away from the floral or fruit teas to avoid the additional taste.

• Brown sugar: used to sweeten the tea.

• Salt: needed in a brine to bring moisture into the meat.

• Soy sauce: adds savory and umami notes to balance the sweetness of the tea.

• Lemon: what’s better than a fresh lemon with an iced sweet tea.

• Peppercorns: adds a little earthiness and sharpness to the marinade.

• Seasoning: I seasoned some of the quarters with just salt and pepper, while the other in a sweet bbq seasoning.

How to make a sweet tea brine

A basic brine consists of water, salt and sugar. Brining meat helps pull moisture and flavor into the meat making it juicier. Adding other ingredients can add flavor to the protein.

This Sweet Tea Brine Smoked Chicken calls for, well, sweet tea.

My bring recipe will make 1 gallon of brine. Start by filling up a 4 quart saucepan halfway with water. Next add salt and brown sugar. That’s all that is needed to make a brine. But I took it a step further and added freshly squeezed lemon juice for some zest and freshness. Once the juice is squeezed out, drop in the lemon carcass as well. I also added soy sauce, garlic cloves and peppercorns for an earthy, savory flavor that will balance the sweetness of the sugar.

Bring this mixture to a boil and stir to make sure the salt and sugar have completely dissolved. Finally, add the tea bags and steep for 5-10 minutes to extract all the flavor.

At this point the brine solution is still very hot. Transfer the liquid to your brining container and add 2 quarts off cold water or ice cubes to bring down the temperature. DO NOT PUT THE RAW CHICKEN IN THE HOT LIQUID. The temperature of the brine needs to be 40 degrees or below. The total volume of the liquid should be 1 gallon.

Place the chicken leg quarters into the bucket and place them in the fridge for at least 2-3 hours. An overnight brine is ideal as that will maximize the flavor. The longer it brines, the more flavorful it will be.

Time to smoke the chicken

Before we throw these Sweet Tea brined chicken quarters on the smoker, they need to be dried and seasoned.

In order to get the skin nice and crispy, it needs to be dry when the chicken goes on the smoker. Pat dry the chicken with a paper towel, making sure it’s dry on all sides. Even though the chicken is brined and the meat is flavored from the inside, we still want to season the outside.

I seasoned my chicken quarters two different ways. For some I used a simple salt, pepper and garlic mix, which is the traditional Texas method, while the other half I seasoned with Dad’s Sweet BBQ rub for a little bit of a sweet bite to compliment the sweet tea brine.

For this recipe, I used my offset smoker. However, any smoker, grill or oven will work. If you do decide to make this in the kitchen, the flavors will be the same but you will miss the smokiness that you naturally get from the grill.

Preheat the smoker or grill to a low heat around 275 degrees Fahrenheit and set it for indirect heat. Place the chicken on the smoker skin side up, and let it cook. You want to smoke this sweet tea brined chicken low and slow for the optimal tender, juice and flavor meat.

The safe eating temperature on chicken is 165 degrees Fahrenheit. However, darker meat should be cooked to a higher temperature to cook off connective tissue and render down the fat. Dark, bone-in meat is much more forgiving than a chicken breast and when grilled to 175-185 degrees, the meat will be tender, juicy and have a great bite through. Lower internal temps will cause the meat to feel rubbery and unpleasant to eat.

Don’t forget to rest smoked chicken

The golden rule to perfectly tender and juicy meat of any kind is cooking to the right temperature and then resting the meat for 5-10 minutes. Some people are so eager to eat the meat right away, because it’s still warm, that they miss a crucial step – the resting phase.

Resting protein not only slows down the cooking process and brings the final temperature of the meat to a safe range, but allows the juices within the meat to redistribute through making every bite juicy.

Hope you enjoy this Sweet Tea Brine Smoked Chicken recipe as much as we do!

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