* Start with good ingredients.  Once cup salt per gallon of water and any special spice taste you may like.

* Cajun and seafood boil powder is good or you can just use water and salt.  

* Then I like to add a quart or two of ice and water to cool the brine, This gives you a good cold environment for your raw birds.

* You can put in a couple of bay leaves as you drop in your pre-rinsed birds for a 24 hour stay in the fridge. Use small fryer chickens.  I use a plastic container (approx 3 gallons), cover it with aluminum foil, and refrigerate for about 24 hours.

* The birds are ready the next day.  Rinse them about 3 times what you feel in necessary to remove the salt.  Then sit them up in a container lined with paper towels and no lid for another 24 hours so they will drain and become dry.

* After they have dried in the fridge, carefully separate the skin from the meat as much as possible without damaging the skin, and liberally apply olive oil and your favorite seasoning (Prudhommes Poultry seasoning is my favorite) and some cayenne pepper, and work it all under the skin as good as you can. You can mix your seasoning in a small bowl of olive oil and just spoon it under the skin.  Let them sit another 24 hours. You can go over or under 24 hours after seasoning and still have great results.

* Then cook them standing (for best results, with legs and wings bound to the body of the bird) at about 300 to 350 for about 3 hours or until the thigh meat reaches 200 or better.  Tender, juicy, fall apart chicken which everybody will go wild for.   They look like this when done.  These were poked into an elastic net to hold the wings and legs in tight.  Works pretty good.