First Time Chicken

Greetings all,

My (wonderful) wife blessed me with an 18.5 and I'm looking forward to doing up some chicken this weekend as a first run through. Of course I'd like to be able to wow her (and her in-laws).


So, I remember as a kid my dad had a similar type of smoker (cylindrical with coal pan in bottom, water pan, and two-three racks). He made some of the most memorable meals with it. my favorite being a huge turkey up on the top rack, chickens in the middle rack (he'd swap out to a second set of chickens in the middle of the turkey cook time), and veggies down in the water pan.

Now, I'm not going to go quite that all out for my first time on the smoker, but I was hoping for some good tips.

I don't remember him doing anything to the chicken itself, just pure smoking. Does that make sense? can chicken that's only been smoked be good?

I'd like to do up 3 chickens - is that reasonably doable on my 18"? and if so, what would the wizards here recommend for temp and time?

Also, I searched and found some old posts about veggies down in the water pan, but nothing recent. Have there been any recent thoughts on dripping soaked veggies?

Thanks in advance! I'm already getting anxious for the weekend.

Welcome Scott!

Chicken is a good choice for a 1st cook; very easy and quick. How to cook the chicken is the question; chicken is like a blank canvas and can be cooked with so many different seasonings, marinades, brines, etc. Here's a link that covers a very easy chicken recipe which should please most people: marinated chicken. You can mix it up by adding your own seasoning to the chicken. Cutting it up before cooking will help cook it more uniformly; but you could do them whole. If you have smoke wood options; choose something on the light side such as a fruit wood; apple, cherry, lemon, etc. Otherwise a single fist size piece of oak or pecan will work. Poultry picks up the smoke very easily so don't go overboard. I prefer a high heat (350+) cook with chicken; it helps crisp up the skin.

For veggies, I'd suggest browsing the 'Side Dishes' section. Grilled corn on the cob, asparagus, zucchini are all great. See what's available in the produce section and go from there. Have fun and let us know how things turn out.

Paul

I'd suggest just halving the chicken and brining it. I always put 2 halves per grate, but the link above shows 4 halves per. You could use a rib rack or something to get them to sit on edge if you want more capacity.
Use lump charcoal and a piece of apple or cherry you'll see how nice the flavor is without seasoning and marinade.
Aim for high heat, 300-350 works for me. Maybe about 1.5 hours +/- 30 min. Use a quick-check therm and/or whatever done-ness check you prefer.
You'll need to use a dry water pan (foil only) to get good high temps.
I've never tried the skin-crisping step linked above, I'm not sure I'd bother on the first go at it.

Keep the carcasses to make a delicious chicken stock.

Thanks for the replys. I've decided on doing a simple rub on two roaster chickens that have been flattened. Limited choices on the wood at my local Home Depot, so I'm going with Mesquite. Guessing just one or two chunks on the coals.

I've got a couple remote probe thermometers, so I'll probably jab one into the breast of both chickens and watch the fun. That will be better then guesstimating on the time my first time round!

Looking to be a nice "spring" day in Houston so day time times in the mid 70s should set me up pretty well. Since this is a first time cook on the bullet, I'm understanding that keeping it hotter shouldn't be a problem so I'll also go with a water pan with water in it.

I'll be sure to post back with results.

Scott,

Just make sure you you resist the urge to add too many chunks of misquite. It imparts a heavier flavor and chicken takes on that flavor favor very easily.

Using a Rub recipe stolen shamelessly from a Weber Grilling cookbook (and the associated dipping sauce), the two roaster chickens turned out pretty well. At the very least wife and in-laws enjoyed them!

Two "problems":
<UL TYPE=SQUARE> <LI> Even with a dry pan and a nice breeze blowing through, it took nearly 2 hours to cook the top rack chicken to 170 in the breast. The smoker never dipped below 350... is that normal to take that long?
<LI> I had thought (based on some other forum posts I had read) the lower rack chicken would cook faster, but in fact that breast only got up to bout 162 . In general, does the top rack cook hotter then the lower rack? [/list]

I only used three small (1x3 inch) chunks of mesquite and I think I could have easily done more - the rub far outflavored the smoke.

Regardless, I'm already planning my next smoking adventure (and thanks for the posts above)!

Scott,

How much charcoal did you put in the ring? And was all of it lit (at once)? If you were going with the high heat method, you don't want to use the Minion Method for the coals; you want the standard method . Granted you had 2 chickens in there, but 2 hours does sound a little long. Meat initially acts as a heat sink until it starts to warm up. Did you leave the chickens whole or did you split them or cut them down further for cooking? A whole chicken will take longer to cook.

Paul

Started a full chimney of coals. Then added a half chimney on top and waited until they were almost totally ashed over to add wood.

The roasters where butterflied. They were in the fridge, but brought out when I started the first chimney, so about 40 minutes passed allowing them to lose the chill of the fridge.

Perhaps not enough coals to handle the load, but you did state that temps didn't dip below 350....

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> I'm understanding that keeping it hotter shouldn't be a problem so I'll also go with a water pan with water in it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Did you go dry or with water? A full pan of water and 2 chickens would have made it tough to get over 350...

How were you measuring temps? Is your thermo accurate? Otherwise, I'm out of ideas on this one.

Paul

Nope, actually went dry pan.

Temps measured three ways:
smoker temp was done using the in lid thermometer provided by Weber. I can't be sure its accurate since this was my first time using it.
top chicken was done with a very trustworthy probe thermometer I use often. Continuous monitoring on that.
bottom chicken was measured after being pulled off the grill while it rested with a second probe thermometer (whose cord wasn't long enough to use during the smoke).



regardless, the chicken was tasty - I'd just like to make sure my high heat and fast... is somewhat fast. Eating dinner at 10p is not something I'll get away with often!

2 hours is not out of line if you started with cold chicken, especially if the chickens were large. I usually do chicken at well over 400 (I use a lot of lit) and I always cook small 'fryers', preferably ~3 lbs if I can find them, < 4 if not. Give higher heat a shot.

Glad your first cook went well!