Very smoked chicken, but still moist and tender

Prof Dan

I have been tweaking my chicken recipe for two years, and my family has told me to stop, that this is IT, don't change a thing, stop tweaking. Nothing revolutionary here, just a long series of tweaks that gives us great chicken every time, and it's easy, too.[p]I start with whole fresh chickens and cut them in half. I cut out the backbones, too. I use the handle of a wooden spoon to poke around under the skin and loosen it without tearing it; then I spoon in some marinade and spread it around with the spoon handle. [The marinade can be anything -- I use a mix of teriyaki sauce, barbecue sauce, fresh garlic, chili powder, and chopped green onion. It doesn't matter.] I smear some sauce on the outside of the chickens and let them sit in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.[p]I load up the Egg with fresh lump and fire it up about 90 minutes before dinnertime. Ten minutes later, I dump in a couple of handfuls of wood chunks. Oak, hickory, whatever. Five minutes later, I put the chicken on a raised grid, skin side up. [The raised grid is critical -- otherwise, it'll burn.] I close the Egg, and shut the vents down pretty much all the way so that the chicken soaks in the smoke at a low temp for about 15 minutes. The temp during this time is just over 200 or so.[p]About an hour before dinner, open the vents enough to bring the Egg up to just over 300. Let it stay there for a half hour. Then flip the chicken, skin side down, and keep going at the same temp for another half hour. It sounds like a long time, but the chicken just gets more and more tender.[p]At the very end, open the vents all the way and crisp the chicken, if you want. You can also smear on a little more sauce at that time. Watch it carefully, checking every minute or so, and don't let it catch fire. That's it.[p]Has anyone tried smoking chicken for a much longer time at low temps, and then crisping it up at the last minute?