Big cook tonight on my Weber Q


 

Pinny

TVWBB Super Fan
First off, I want to give a HUGE thanks to Phil Hartcher on these boards for alot of great advice he gave me!

Also, sorry in advance for not taking pictures but I couldn't find my camera. Will take next time.

My friend got married last week and him and his new bride were coming over. I wanted to make a bunch of different foods to try to impress everyone. Decided to go with 4 burgers, 4 hot dogs, 2 chicken breasts, and 3 chicken bottoms. The major challenge was that I wanted everything to be done at the same time.

For the burgers I mixed in some store bought steak rub with the ground beef. The seasoning was nothing great, but decent. I also sprinkled the rub on the chicken breasts (after first spraying them with a little olive oil cooking spray).

The chicken thighs got marinated for an hour in Italian dressing. Also, I cut off the excess skin.

Didn't do anything to the hot dogs. I prefer using condiments to dress them.

Turned the grill to medium (about 400 degrees) direct heat (about 2/5 of the way up on both burners on my Q 300 in the snow).

Then I covered half the grill with a double layer of foil (leaving 2 inches along the edges for heat to come up through.)

I took hickory and oak wood chips that had been soaking for an hour and wrapped them in foil, poked a bunch of holes on the foil, and put the foil package directly on the grates (not the burners!). Within just a couple of minutes the wood chips started smoldering with smoke coming out of the package.

At this point I took a cooling rack (identical to a roasting trivet) my wife had for cakes and bread she bakes and placed it on the foiled half of the grill (sprayed it with cooking spray before putting it on the grill). Then I put the chicken thighs on the cooling rack.

At this point I also put on the burgers, hot dogs and chicken breasts. A couple minutes on each side and they were all done. Except for one of the chicken breasts that is - I was afraid of burning it but it needed to cook more so I put it on the cooling rack with the thighs. After these quick pieces were done I put them in a foil pan to stay warm.

About 30 minutes later the chicken thighs were looking stunning! No charred skin like I was used to in my previous non-foil attempts. At this point they were almost done so I put the covered foil pan on the empty half of the grate to have that food start to warm up.

5 minutes later the thighs were ready and so I put them skin side down on the unfoiled grate and moved the pan with the other food onto the cooking rack.

3 minutes later I flipped the thighs. 3 minutes after that I put them in the pan with the rest of the food, and brought everything in and let it sit for a few (~10) minutes to kinda settle.

I thought the thighs were some of the best chicken I've ever had. The burgers seemed a bit dry to me but my friend loved them and he had 3. The women ate the chicken breasts and said they were excellent. I ate the hot dogs - YUM I love hot dogs. Overall a huge success in my quest to being decent at this new amazing hobby I've found.

Thanks for reading and I would be happy to hear comments and suggestions.

-Pinny
 

 

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