So I didn't take long to decide what to post first. I was looking through the fridge and I ran into the smoked chicken that I did on Saturday and I figured I might as well start there.
A little preface to the story first may be in order. A few years ago my wife and I went out to Kelowna for Thanksgiving. While enjoying the wineries and all the samples I ran across a barbecue cook book in the gift shop at Mission HIll. After looking at the intro I decided to pick up
Barbecue Secrets and take it home. I initially thought that I would find some great recipes to do on my gas barbecue and maybe some hints for cooking in general. I did find that but I also found a bunch of recipes that called for the slow and low approach on a charcoal smoker. By the spring I had read enough of these to convince myself to take the plunge and by a
smoker! I'm now seven seasons in and my barbecue book collection has grown and I even managed to take a workshop from the author of the first book to add to my knowledge.
With all that said here is a post about the chicken that I cooked on Saturday.
Above are the chickens butterflied and ready to go on the smoker. I have coated them with mustard and a rub and that I made up from the Barbecue Secrets book. For those that are interested here is the
recipe. I can't honestly remember what I used for signature spices in this rub but I think it was cayenne, curry and oregano.
I loaded up the smoker with some Kingsford charcoal and put in a couple of chunks of hickory and a handful of applewood chips. Since the chickens are a "quick" I only put in two layers of charcoal. After using a starter chimney to get the coals going I dumped them in and loaded up the chickens.
This photos was about an hour into the cook. I highly recommend taking advantage of smoking a meal to get a few other items on the grill that can be used later. In this case I didn't plan far enough ahead but in the past I have added a tray of kosher salt, whole raw onions, heads of garlic, and even tomatoes. Things like garlic and salt can be used later to add flavour to other meals that you would like a smoke flavour in. The onions I used to make onion soup and the tomatoes are awesome in guacamole!
Six hours later the chickens had reached temperature and were ready to eat. One of the things I enjoy with chicken like this is the flavour and how moist the meat is. Only drawback is that skin looks great but has the texture of rubber because of the low heat used in the smoker.
This isn't the most detailed post on the process. If you want all the details on cooking the
Virtual Weber Bullet site is an awesome resource as well. That is all for now, time to get back to lunch for the family!
Later,
Darren
