legs up chick in ring of hot fire; who needs Joti$$erie ;))

Canugghead

sorry to disappoint, it's just food porn   

in XL, wok surrounded by thin wall of lump...

small 3.25 lb bird, marinated with leftover Asian marinade (recipe posted recently) for few hours, made two incisions beside the neck (instead of breaking the breast bone) to facilitate insertion of BGE turkey stand, pre installed 'fishing hook', lit lump in five spots evenly around, threw in few vine twigs... btw, it's @Little Steven 's idea to invert the bird to allow legs come to temp before breast is overcooked, brilliant eh?

dome temp around 325, couldn't get hotter probably due to lump layout and limited lit spots, bum tip started browning at the 20-min mark so I tented the top with foil.  at almost the hour mark, I 'fished' the bird out when legs registered 170 and breast 165...


big pool of rendered fat, and not much 'dent' in the lump even after I tapped it down, XL is not a lump monster...


super juicy meat (dark and light) and fatless crispy skin all around, who needs Joti$$erie? btw, the bum tip is the best part of the bird...


This works great for one bird, but cooking two birds side by side will mess up the heat distribution. Thinking of making a contraption to stack two birds, or simply place the 2nd bird on a raised grid above the 1st, would be interesting to compare two birds cooked at different levels.

What I'd also do differently next time: light more spots for higher temp but leave a section unlit and have the breast(s) facing it.

Thanks for looking!

cookingdude555

Since another thread rose from the dead, this one should too.  And there is good reason, this is an awesome write up of a cool method of cooking.  How did this not receive any replies from two years ago?  @Canugghead , was it difficult to get an even light for the lump in a circle around the bird?

Canugghead

@cookingdude555 Thanks for digging this up and the kind words. Inverted bird is a LS legacy.  Due to the size of the fire ring, I chose to light in several spots instead of the entire ring, by mid cook some spots were hotter than others and I recall rotating the bird couple of times.  FWIW, that carbon steel bottomless wok has cracked early this year.

cookingdude555

Thanks @Canugghead