They were both pretty good but I think I prefer the Pecan a bit more. I think it had a more pronounced smoke flavor. My wife on the other hand loved the apple. There's really no right or wrong answer :)

Chicken skin is rubbery due to the chicken fat not rendering enough. A few things you can do are:

1. Scrape off the fat off chicken skin (I personally don't do this. It's WAY too tedious)

2. Dry chicken skin with paper towels

3. Leave your chicken on a wire rack in the fridge for a few hours to help it air dry

4. Spray your chicken with oil/butter/fat/lard (I use duck fat and it works great)

5. Lastly and probably most importantly, cook at a higher temperature. For chicken you wanna do 300-325F. Obviously if you cook at a higher temp the entire time, your chicken won't get as much time to soak in the smoke. So the key is smoking at a lower temp for the first hour or so and then cranking the temp up and leaving it there long enough so that the skin dries out but not the meat. This is kind of a balancing act that you, as the cook, has to decide. Good luck! :)

1. Brine the chicken in a salt solution overnight
2. After brining use paper towels to dry off chicken (especially the skin). Place back on a rack and back in the fridge to dry out even more
3. I sprayed each piece with duck fat but you can also use butter or olive oil.
4. Use whatever rub you like. I used a mixture of SPG and a generic chicken rub I got from Bass Pro Shops.
5. Let rub sit and fire up your smoker to 200F. I used pecan and apple wood accordingly through my smoker’s smoke box feature
6. I let the smoke roll until each piece was around roughly 150F internal, then bumped up the smoker temp to 325F.
7. I called the chicken done when the skin felt crackly and meat was soft. Temps were reading around 180-190F

Like I say, I don't think there's really a right or wrong way to do it. I generally disregard those "wood smoking guides" you see everywhere and just do what I feel like doing. I've never had a terrible result thus far :)

Hell yea! I've used post oak on chicken, brisket, and spare ribs. I see why Texans love it so much!

I admittedly didn't give cherry that much of a chance since I was already so accustomed to using apple. I did use up all of my apple wood and bought some cherry so that I'd be forced to try something different. I'm actually pretty excited about it

I’m also curious about this. I tend to go oak, hickory, or pecan on anything beef

Good luck brother 👊

Thanks for the tip!