Chicken Practice

Definitely work on the shape of the thighs, and the sauce looks a little splotchy. If you haven't yet, check out bbqcritic.com and look at the pics there.

Not sure how you applied the sauce but what I have found that works best is to dunk the chicken in the sauce so it is applied evenly. Make sure that the sauce is hot so it is thinner and it won't be over sauced. I generally wear a pair of jersey gloves with a pair of latex gloves over them so I don't burn my hands. Also if the sauce is hot you won't need to put it back in the smoker to set the sauce and it will keep it's shine better. In the end it really comes down to taste, if it taste good it will do well! Just my 2 cents

Shape - not only are they all different shapes, but they're all different sizes. This will ding you in both appearance as well as (possibly) tenderness. With chicken, it's hard to make sure you're hitting tenderness with all pieces if they are not all the same starting size/weight. We weigh all our chicken before we trim them, then again after we trim. We group them into three categories according to that: large, medium, and home eating (too small). Then when we cook we will do two pans, one of each of the two sizes. When we select for the box we try an ugly one from each size to determine what goes in the box.

Sauce - as was mentioned above, try dunking your thighs instead of how you applied here. The bottom left two are a lot darker than the others, and the top right is very uneven.

I don't mind the color on any of them (the bottom right two may be a tad darker than we would look for). Work on shape/size and dunk in warm sauce next time and I think you'll be on your way! BTW, it took us forever to figure out how to shape/size thighs...don't give up if you have a hard time getting it right for awhile.

Agree with the others. Maybe work on shape, sauce consistency, and color. Looks a little dark but it might be the lighting.

cut that other bone out.