First smoke, split chicken

[Mike_L (Big Mike)]

Well, I would like to say everything went great on my first cook, but i had no such luck.

Everything started out great. I followed the beginner recipe on the web site, and it seemed like i was going to have success. The problem, i got too caught up in the instructions that i forgot to check the temperature of the chicken.

At the 45 minute mark,i sauced my chicken, then at the 1 hour mark i crisped the skin. Then i took the chicken off the grill. About 10 minutes went by and i was going to start cutting up the chicken when i realized that i didn't check the temperature of the chicken.. It only registered 140 degrees.

It took me another hour after getting it back on the smoker. The skin was rubbery also.

When we did get to eat the flavor was great. The chicken was too moist for my liking. But it looked good.

 

[Mike Hartwell]

Water in the pan?
External temps low?
I prefer to cook chicken without the water pan, keeping temps 325 or so.
I just keep flipping the meat around to avoid incineration.
After an hour or so, I put he cooking grate directly on the coals to crisp everything up nicely. Caution is advised with this step as the coals are HOT.

 

[Chris E]

Mike sounds like you made a humble and graceful recovery without serving your family raw chicken! Keep at it.

I'm also a fan of chicken done at 325-350 without water in the pan. I put a little olive oil on the skin and then my favorite rub. I use indirect method on my weber kettle if I'm just doing one or two chicken halves. I load 6 in the WSM if I need.

I'd take the breast to at least 160 and the leg quarters take longer so I put them around the edge of the rack and the breasts in the middle if pieced out.

Keep it up. leg/thigh quarters (aka Robin Hood chicken in my house) are super cheap and great to get the hang of the wsm.

I will do low and slow (225F) on chicken if I want sweet smoky meat for use in enchiladas or pulled chicken. Skin will be rubbery but I discard in those cases.

Good save, it gets easier quickly. and it looks like ou have at least one big fan already based on the pics!