Cedarwood and chicken experiment on the spirit

[Jonas-Switzerland]

My chicken game needs improving. So i tried some drumettes. I found a cedar wood plank.

I had always watered the plank. The results had been less impressive. It felt like I was enveloping the meat in cedar water vapors, but nothing more.

So I removed one of the favorizer bar, charred it a bit, and tried some chicken.


Tried some indirect heat at 200C/400F for 20 minutes.



Some direct heat before the basting


And the final result was...

Dry

I overcooled them. In my defense, I had a cute kid to look after during the time. It had a nice subtle smoke flavour though. So maybe charring the plank before was a good choice. Then I remembered I used smoked paprika powder

Alright, gotta try it again.

 

[Tim Campbell]

Good looking chicken, Jonas. Does the cedar impart noticeable flavors after charring? Cool idea.

You could pull/shred the chicken and reconstitute it in some liquid for killer tacos. But I think those legs look really tasty as is.

 

[Mark Silver]

I’ve only used cedar planks or untreated cedar shingles (my preference) for salmon, however I never soak or wet the wood. Grilling directly over the fire chars the wood and the edges will smolder adding to the smoke flavor. I think if I was using cedar planks for chicken, I might consider it moving it on and off direct heat, as chicken will take longer to cook than salmon and the plank could burn up if kept on direct heat too long, threatening to burn the product.

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

I kind of like planks for fish to “temper” the heat but, had not considered using them for chicken!

 

[Jonas-Switzerland]

I bought cedar exactly for salmon. But kids happened and suddly it was collecting dust. I never had amazing salmon results with the plank.

Since then, I added a copper frying pan and a WSM to my cooking arsenal. Both do amazing with fresh salmon. My GoTo method now is putting the salmon on a portable grate, and giving it a 20min smoke at 240-260F. It will be a glassy, smoky salmon which I like a lot.

Like I said, the chicken had a nice smokyness to it. But I can't say how much was due to the plank, because I rubbed it in smoked paprika.

What I can say though it gave me perfect thin blue smoke on the gas grill.