mesquite & Chicken

[Vin]

The 3 chicken recipes on the Cooking page here all say not to use Mesquite but no rationale... why not?

Thanks.

 

[Eric W]

It's real easy to oversmoke a bird, and mesquite has a strong flavor.

 

[Craig Castille]

Mesquite is too strong for most.

 

[TonyB]

if you like mesquite then try using a small chunk the first time and up it from there til ya get it where ya want... who cares what others think... chicken is a nice and cheap meat to try it out on, i say "why not??" even though i'm personally not a mesquite fan...

 

[Doug D]

Remember that most references you see to mesquite and chicken are "mesquite grilled", where the exposure is far more fleeting. It takes a meat with its own bold flavor to stand up to being smoked with mesquite.

 

[Jeff_S]

Just to toss in another perspective, I prefer to smoke my chicken with mesquite for about 5 hours at 250...

 

[Kevin S.]

Beef just isn't the same without a touch of mesquite, but I dunno about using it with chicken.

Mesquite doesn't get much praise around here, but for some, there's no substitute. I recommend you try some -- go lightly at first -- and decide for yourself.

 

[Kent Perry]

Personally, I like mesquite with chicken...but I do it in the kettle and only toss in one chunk along with an oak chunk. That's about an hour's exposure, so maybe that's how I avoid overdoing the smoke...but I highly recommend it if you are not going low and slow.