BCC on BGE plus Dessert - Pix Intensive

jfm0830 · November 2012

I used to love BCC (Beer Can Chicken), but frankly I'd found that rotisserie chicken on my gas grill turned out more moist than BCC. So it has been a long time for me making BCC. Now the first meal on my BGE was a spatchcocked chicken, which was the most moist chicken I'd ever had. Where rotisserie chicken is off the table with the Egg, I figured I try a BCC. The recipe I made was from Weber's Charcoal Grilling and was called Garlic & Oregano Beer can Chicken. I also picked up the Cook's Illustrated Holiday Desserts issue, which has over a dozen dessert I plan to try. Today's dessert was Hermit Cookies, which are a crispy, square cookie which taste a lot like a ginger bread man. They are very popular here in New England and one of the things I was looking for was a crispy Hermit because the store-bought ones are no longer crispy and are often sad soggy affairs.

I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story & I will describe the final results and action items at the end of the pictures. I do have one question for those of you who bake on your Egg. These Hermits cooked with the grill set up for indirect and at the same temp as the chicken, so it wasn't a big deal to fire up the Egg 30 minutes earlier and throw the Hermits on. But I am curious what, if anything, you guys think the Egg brings to the table for something like these Hermits that an indoor oven doesn't. One of the recipes I will be making soon is an Eggnog bundt cake and where it is in cake pan. I am wondering why bother doing it on the Egg.

So Q: What types of desserts do you make or not make on the Egg and why?

The spice paste for the chicken is up first it used: Lime juice, minced garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano, vegetable oil & Kosher salt. I always get asked what the "PY" on the cutting board is for. That is my dedicated cutting board for raw poultry & I've marked two of the corners.

I haven't done a BCC in a long, long time & I also haven't used my mortar & pestle for a long time either. Here the garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes & salt are ground up.

The chicken has had the giblets removed, the fat trimmed & has been washed with cold water. The vegetable oil & lime juice have been added to the spice paste.

The chicken is rubbed & it is off to the fridge for 4 hours.

Time to switch gears & start the Hermits. They used: crystalized ginger, raisins, butter, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda, molasses, an egg, confectioners sugar, orange juice, dark brown sugar, table salt & all-purpose flour.

The butter is heated until it is browned.

When the butter is browned, the allspice & cinnamon are added and mixed together. You pull the pan off the heat when you smell the spices-this took less than 30 seconds.

Some of the dry ingredients are mixed together and set aside. The all-purpose flour, baking soda & salt are mixed together.

The crystalized ginger & raisins are chopped in a food processor until they are chopped & clump together.

Once cooled, the browned butter/spice mixture is mixed together with the ginger raisin mixture.

The molasses, egg & brown sugar are added to the mix.

The last step was to fold in the flour/salt/baking soda mixture into the mix. This was some of the stickiest dough I've ever made. It gets refrigerated to help harden it up & make it easier to handle.

90 minutes later & the dough has been hardened up & is easier to handle. Here it is turned out onto a lightly floured silicone mat.

The dough was divided in half & rolled into 10" long logs. Here they are on a 1/4 sheet pan on parchment paper. After this it went onto the Egg which is set up for indirect grilling at 350 degrees with the platesetter installed legs up & the s/s grill grate on that.

While the Hermits are baking on the Egg, it is time to prep the chicken (& the cook). I used a Weber poultry stand. The well in the base is for the beer, the rest of the base serves as a drip pan. The finned cap is perforated to let the steam into the chicken cavity. There is a neck plug seen in front of the beer in this picture,. I used some Blue Moon beer to lubricate both the chicken & me. I had to have another bottle of beer while the chicken cooked-strictly for quality assurance purposes you understand.

The 5 1/4 pound chicken is on the stand & the neck hole plug is in.

The Hermits are done after 25 minutes & get replaced on the Egg with the BCC.

The Hermits have cooled & it is time to make the glaze from orange juice & confectioners sugar. I was quite curious about this as I'd never had hermits with a glaze before.

The chicken took 90 minutes to cook & it cools in the Kitchen for 10 minutes before carving.

To carve the chicken I cut the legs & thighs off first & once off the chicken I separated the leg & thigh pieces (middle). Then I removed the breasts & wings & cut each breast in half (left & right).

The chicken was served with some chicken flavored rice.

This beer can chicken was as moist as the spatchcocked chicken I made on my Egg. I would have to do a side by side taste test to pick a winner there. I was very, very pleased with this cook & this recipe, but I do have room for improvement. The Hermits were excellent, about the best I remember trying. The glaze was a wonderful addition. There is a little room for improvement here too.

Action Items - Chicken

- Try using apple chips instead of apple chips. There was less smoke flavor than I was hoping for.

- Try cooking this at 400 degrees vs. 350. I would have liked the skin to be a tad crispier.

- Make more of the spice paste. This chicken was 5 1/4 pounds versus 4 pounds used in the recipe. I could have used a bit more due to the larger surface area of my bird.

Action Items - Hermits

- Figure out a better way to apply the glaze & improve my technique.

- I probably could have pulled the Hermits 2 or 3 minutes sooner. They weren't burnt, but it was getting close to that point.

Jim

cazzy · November 2012

I certainly missed this post... guess myself and others were busy with Election Day.

Excellent post and great pictures as usual Jim! Incredibly informative and looks like you had a great cook. The picture timeline was great and does tell a great story. I will be trying the hermit cookies one day.

FanOfFanboys · November 2012

I dunno how I missed this. I am a sucker for threads with lots of pictures. Chicken looks fantastic. I will bookmark this.

Hi54putty · November 2012

This looks great. I like that chicken stand. I am a spatchcock fan but am going to give this a try. Thanks for posting.

jfm0830 · November 2012

Hi54putty said:

This looks great. I like that chicken stand. I am a spatchcock fan but am going to give this a try. Thanks for posting.

That is a great chicken stand. It does everything right and I like the way it is it's own drip pan. Sadly I don't think they make it anymore. Fortunately I have two.

Dyal_SC · November 2012

Droooool!! Nicely done, Jim! You da man!

BYS1981 · November 2012

I haven't picked up the holiday desserts Cooks Illustrated yet, but I really like their stuff. I use their website a lot and adjust stuff to make it in the egg. Try their tandoori chicken.

Logger · November 2012

Found this...

http://www.amazon.com/Weber-6408-Style-Poultry-Roaster/dp/B0012XXE3E

Skiddymarker · November 2012

Great cook, as always! Thanks.

Noticed that Little_Steven does his chickens inverted, my son does his BCC inverted on his gasser and claims there is a difference, seems both are getting the dark meat closer to the higher heat near the dome/lid. You should give it a try.

I love the hermits - it all looks good.

DocWonmug · November 2012

Nice post, thanks.

Griffin · November 2012

What a wonderful cook @jfm0830. Looks like that chicken came out really well. Never had Hermit cookies, but they look good.

As to why bake in the Egg, mostly just cause you can. The wow factor when you tell somebody or they see you doing it. Sometimes you might get a bit of smoke flavor in your dessert (depending on charcoal/if there's any leftover wood chips/chunks buried in your lump still, but I don't find much benefit taste wise. I will say it gives me a reason to sit outside with my dogs. And it doesn't heat up the kitchen, which during the summer in Texas is a good thing.

jfm0830 · November 2012

Thanks @Griffin.

Some of the advertising about the BGE claims that with the ceramic dome and the better seal of the BGE it is a better oven than your Kitchen oven. This I do believe to a great extent and can buy. Plus for something like pizza you can go far higher than most Kitchen ovens. Another advantage is it frees up the oven on holidays where you may have folks bringing sides you may need to reheat.

I was curious if folks have some sort of line of demarcation where they do A,B & C on the Egg because of say the more even cooking or better moisture retention and they don't bother with X,Y or Z because they really don't see any particular advantage. Like I said, what got me going on that was the Eggnog Bundt Cake I may try out. I am thinking with most of the cake in the bunt cake pan, that will even out any temperature variations and just the bottom is exposed, so I am not sure about any moisture retention advantage for the Egg applying here. But like you say, I may do it cause i can and if it is Thanksgiving Day it will free up my oven. It is always nice having options.

Jim

Griffin · November 2012

Still early in the morning here, but when you take into consideration how much of a temp swing most kitchen ovens cycle through, there's another benefit of cooking it on the Egg. Steady temp.

I know some guys even have seperate "baker" eggs that never get any smoke or wood or cook anything but breads/cakes/pies etc.

jfm0830 · November 2012

Eddie_K on the old forum was making some very sweet desserts on his Egg. He uses WGWW lump like I do and he said he never got a smoky flavor from that, if he let the Egg warm up properly. For Thanksgiving I will be doing dessert, rolls & smoked turkey in that order, so hopefully I'll be OK in that regard.

Jim

BCC on BGE plus Dessert - Pix Intensive

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