Egg VS Chicken Experiment

Hawg Fan

When I lived in Texas, I had a neighbor that had a brick pit that he claimed could cook 44 chickens at a time. His secret was to hang the birds by the neck and when they were completely cooked, the neck would break and the bird would fall. I built an "A" frame stand and placed in by large offset cooker and tried his method and it worked well. At the time I never had a digital thermometer, so I don't know what the internal temp was. Today I built a device to hang a chicken in my large BGE and tried to duplicate the cook. Here is my results. I first started by building a device to hang the bird from the daisy wheel and with a pop-up indicator to let me know when the bird falls so I wouldn't have to babysit the Egg.



I prepared the bird and tied a small piece of craft wire around its neck and made a loop at the end.

I got the Egg settled in at 400 degrees, threw in a handful of sassafras chips and laid the bird on the grid and used a meat hook to lift the bird and attach to the device. Notice that I had to insert the device between the daisy wheel and its casing.

Here's the bird hanging with the lid of the Egg cracked open for a pictute.

After an hour and 45 minutes I began to worry because I knew the bird should be done. At 2 hours the bird fell and I removed from the Egg. At this point I took the birds internal temperature. It was 193 degrees.

This is the broken neck that I removed from the hanging device.

The bird was excellent, even at 193 degrees. The leg and thighs were so juicy and tender that when I tried to remove them from the bird they just fell apart. The bird had added flavor because during the last hour of the cook, the fat that rendered from the bird was falling into the lump and creating its own smoke for flavor. This method works in the Egg, but would be easier in a XL Egg that had a rack to hang the bird from.

Mickey

I am not sure what a reply would be.
Yes, good looking bird.
Yes, good work to come up with all that.
But :huh: :ermm: :S

AZRP

I always cook dark meat to 195-200 and like you said it just falls apart. Was the breast also 193, if so was it dry? -RP

Capt Frank

I think you win the inovation/Rube Goldberg award for the week! Do you have a day job?
Just kidding, that is clever :laugh:

Hawg Fan

RP - to my surprise, the breast was moist. I was afraid that the bird would be overcooked and dry, but it wasn't. I guess chicken is a forgiving meat.