Let's keep this post going because I don't think there is enough info on the web about how to use Walkers Wood. True to my word, I made some Walker's Wood chicken last night. I mixed about 1/4 cup of Walkers Wood Hot into about 1.5 cups of whole fat greek yogurt (a 1:6 ratio). I tasted the mixture and thought it was pretty spicy, and could possibly ruin the chicken, but decided that since I only had about 6 hours to marinate it might be OK. I used some leg quarters and thighs, and put slits in the skin and meat so I could get the mixture into the meat and under the skin. I slathered on the marinade and had a lot left over (I probably had enough to do 3 or 4 whole chickens). I'll know better next time.
I put my chicken in the fridge for about 6 hours and at around 5:15 or so, I set up the 22" WSM by installing my fire dial to help handle grease flare ups, and put one layer of unlit briquettes on the charcoal grate, and covered that with one chimney of lit briquettes. I left all the vents wide open and was running about 275 to 300 on the WSM's dome thermometer (on a scorching hot day in STL). Given poor planning and zero availability of pimento wood in my backyard, I stuck a 18" long chunk of pecan in the hot coals.
I turned on the reggae music and put the chicken on the top grate and didn't try turning it for about 20 minutes. After that first 20 minutes the skin was looking pretty good so I let it go another 5 and gave it a flip. Eventually I closed the vents down to about half way when the chicken grease started to render a bit just to make sure we didn't have a grease fire the temps jumped up a bit to 300 ~325 as more coals continued to light.
So, here we are on the plate, with some salad, rice and beans and a nice looking leg quarter
So, as I said before, I thought this might turn out too spicy, but it didn't. The jerk flavor was pretty light, but did have a little "back-heat", and a nice kiss of smoke and enough salt. I checked my jar of Walkers to make sure it wasn't stale, and it was by label still pretty fresh [expires in Aug 2021). I really liked how the greek yogurt helped the jerk stick to the chicken, so I'm going to use it again for sure. I'm going to try a 1:3 ratio of jerk to yogurt and marinate for about the same time to see how that turns out. I may also add a bit of lime juice to the marinate to up the acid, and maybe a bit of allspice or fresh habenero to make it more "jerky".
