Basic Barbecue Chicken

I tried the basic barbecue chicken recipe. I filled the chimney with charcoal and waited until flames shot out of the top. I put in the ring in bottom of smoker. I put 4 chicken quarters on the top grill and put the lid on. The temperature rose to almost 300 degrees. As suggested after 45 minutes I removed the lid and basted with barbecue sauce. After 15 minutes I removed the lid and check the temperature of the chicken with an instant read thermometer. The the internal temperature of the chicken was not 170 degrees. I closed lid and checked every 15 minutes and it took another hour for the chicken to reach 170. At that point the skin on the chicken had pulled back off the meat. Could some one tell me what I did wrong.

Thanks Steve

I am sure you'll get some WSM specific help, mine is going to be more general.

The first thing you need to do to learn to cook (inside or out) is accept that anything that says "do this for xx minutes..." is at the very best a rough guideline. At it's worst it is a recipe for disaster. In the case of saucing chicken...I wait until the chicken is actually done before I sauce, then give the sauce a few minutes to set. If you sauce while the chicken still needs to cook, the sauce is going to rubberize the skin and burn the sugars. Bottom line, the clock is not your friend...the thermometer is.

Now, "almost 300 degrees" isn't hot enough to cook chicken in under an hour. If you're new, you have no way to know that, but under 300 is low and slow cooking, and there's not much that is going to get done in under a couple hours. Get that dome temp up to 350-375 and you can grill up some chicken in an hour-ish. One of the attractive things about a WSM and grilling chicken is that there's a large distance from the fire to the chicken, so the occasional flare up doesn't affect the cook very much.

Hope this helps.

EDITED TO ADD: I'm not sure why I assumed you were using a Weber Smoky Mountain...but I did. What kind of grill were you using? That will help the analysis.

What type of thermometer were you using to monitor the grill temp?
What type of instant read thermometer are you using?
Are you certain the chicken wasn't frozen?

If you're using a bi-metal thermometer that came with the grill, those things are typically inaccurate. I have seen new ones off as much as 60-70 degrees. There are a few out there that work but they're expensive.

If you determine that's not the problem, try checking your instant read against another thermometer, or doing the boil test.

I am using a Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker

Jeff is on the money. If you want to sauce, do so about 15 degrees under target temp. I do my chicken at 350 and it still takes over an hour

well, in my opinion (which means squat to some here), simple barbecue chicken should be done on a grill, not a smoker.
no harm Steven... did you have the water pan in place?
if so, then, you were actually smoking the leg quarters.

again, just my opinion, try again using a Weber kettle and placing the charcoal around the outer portion of the charcoal grate...
chicken in the middle of the cooking grate.

Using the WSM for "grilling" chicken, one should NOT use the water pan.
It is going to block the needed heat to cook the bird pieces at a decent clip.

once again, just my opinion.

I agree with Jim for simple BBQ chicken kettle works best and his opinions around here are valued by many more than don't value them.
With that said I do a lot of chicken on my 18.5 WSM and use a full large chimney of fully lit KBB and no water pan. With that combination I run 350-400 on the top grate, measured with a Maverick. The juices dripping into the hot coals below do add another flavor profile that I like and the flames are to far down to cause any burning of the chicken.
With this type of cook I don't sauce just season, if saucing I will use indirect on a kettle.

I completely missed the fact that he was cooking on a smoker. I agree that this type of cooking is best done on a grill. Having said that, you can be successful using a vertical smoker if you follow a few rules as described above. And still, never trust the bi-metal thermometer in the lid unless you've taken the time to prove it.

The method Rich described is very similar to the way I do chicken quarters on the 14.5 WSM, it works well. Give it another try Steven.

I've been cooking chicken parts on my WSM's for some time, by preference. I use NO water pan, a full chimney of lit (Kingsford Original), and run at about 350 degrees (all vents wide open). I use only the top grate on both the 14.5 and the 18.5. I put the chicken on (been using Weber's Kick'n Chicken) with the lid on and don't look at it for thirty minutes. I flip it at thirty minutes. At about 45 minutes I sauce. I prefer to sauce it twice and pull off just under an hour. The skin is crisp, the chicken is juicy (I ALWAYS brine poultry), and the flavor is awesome... My belief is that the chicken grease dropping down onto the lit coals vaporize and bathe the chicken in lucious smoke.

Keep on smokin',
Dale53

I'm with those who say to grill BBQ chicken, not smoke it. I get a very hot fire on my kettle using the offset heat method. I fork all my raw chicken thoroughly. I put it on the hot grill and wait for a high sizzle. I then swab it with my home-grown chicken BBQ sauce and let it go for a few minutes. I then move it to the cooler side and swab it again. I let it cook until I see some color then turn it over and repeat on the other side.

I usually do chicken halves or quarters. Heat stays high but I use the cool offset to cook more slowly. I cook to color and texture when bbqing chicken not to IT. It's about the only thing I cook without checking IT, but I've been doing it for over 50 years.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm with those who say to grill BBQ chicken, not smoke it. I get a very hot fire on my kettle using the offset heat method. I fork all my raw chicken thoroughly. I put it on the hot grill and wait for a high sizzle. I then swab it with my home-grown chicken BBQ sauce and let it go for a few minutes. I then move it to the cooler side and swab it again. I let it cook until I see some color then turn it over and repeat on the other side.

I usually do chicken halves or quarters. Heat stays high but I use the cool offset to cook more slowly. I cook to color and texture when bbqing chicken not to IT. It's about the only thing I cook without checking IT, but I've been doing it for over 50 years.

Hi Steven,

Thanks for trying the Basic Barbecued Chicken recipe, which is in the Beginner Recipes section on the Cooking page of The Virtual Weber Bullet.

For those unfamiliar with the recipe, the point is to get a success under your belt by cooking chicken hot & fast and not worrying about the cooker temperature, just cooking the chicken until done.

I have a couple of questions/pieces of feedback based on your post:

• Did you use Kingsford Charcoal as instructed in the recipe? It's important to do so because it burns very hot.
• Did you use a Weber chimney? Weber's has larger capacity than most.
• You said you used 1 chimney of charcoal, got it hot so flames were shooting out the top, and dumped it into the cooker. Sounds like you didn't use enough charcoal. The recipe says, "Light a full Weber chimney starter of Kingsford charcoal briquettes" then "Spread the hot coals evenly over the charcoal grate" then "Measure another 1/2 chimney of unlit briquettes and spread them evenly over the hot coals" then "When all the briquettes are covered with gray ash, place the smoke wood chunks on top of the coals" then you're ready to assemble the cooker and start cooking.
• You also may have let the initial chimney of charcoal light too long. The recipe says, "You'll know they're ready when flames are licking at the briquettes at the top of the chimney and they're just starting to turn gray." This photo in the recipe shows just the slightest gray on the top briquets:
  
  
  
  
  
  You said, "flames shot out of the top". If you had fire leaping out of the chimney and a lot of ashed over briquets at the top of the chimney, you burned up more charcoal in the chimney and therefore had less available to cook the meat.
• You don't say what kind of thermometer you used, but make sure to test it for accuracy.

1.5 Weber chimneys of Kingsford Charcoal with all vents wide open will fully cook 2 chickens in 1 hour, guaranteed. Unless you're cooking in gale-force winds or sub-zero temps.

Good luck!