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Smokin' Chicken

eznosow
eznosow Posts: 10
in EggHead Forum
I grill chicken regularly: spatchcocked, vertically (beer canned), or in pieces, but I'd never tried barbecuing one until tonight, two months into my Egghood.  Applied a rub to a four pound bird last night, brought the Egg up to 230, added a few handfuls of cherry wood, and smoked it for a little under 3.5 hours. It was good! The skin, predictably, was not as crisp as it gets via other methods (though I did crank it for the last ten minutes), but the meat was tender and the smoke was great. I don't think this will become my go-to technique for whole chicken but it's definitely in the line up.

On to the food pron:

Dancing chicken:
 

Break dancing / spinning chicken:


Broke down chicken:

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Comments

  • Ozzie_Isaac
    Ozzie_Isaac Posts: 21,673
    Lookin good!  I would be all over that.

    I would rather light a candle than curse your darkness.

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  • Foghorn
    Foghorn Posts: 10,227
    Ditto. I'd hit that all night long. 

    XXL BGE, Karebecue, Klose BYC, Chargiller Akorn Kamado, Weber Smokey Mountain, Grand Turbo gasser, Weber Smoky Joe, and the wheelbarrow that my grandfather used to cook steaks from his cattle

    San Antonio, TX

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  • Stormbringer
    Stormbringer Posts: 2,475
    Awesome jointed shot.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Cooking and blogging with a Large and Minimax in deepest, darkest England-shire
    | My food blog ... BGE and other stuff ... http://www.thecooksdigest.com
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  • johnnyp
    johnnyp Posts: 3,932
    I'd crush it
    XL & MM BGE, 36" Blackstone - Newport News, VA
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  • saluki2007
    saluki2007 Posts: 6,354
    Great job.  I love cherry smoke on chicken.  Have you tried letting it go a little bit longer and pulled instead of cutting into sections?  That's my goto for smoked chicken.
    Large and Small BGE
    Central, IL

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  • lousubcap
    lousubcap Posts: 36,780
    Great result and color.  For your next low&slow chix, as mentioned above by @saluki2007, give pulled chix a go.  Try the search feature as @Mattman3969 has a great recipe.  I have run it at 220-240*F for around 8 hours.  A whole new experience.  FWIW-
    Louisville; Rolling smoke in the neighbourhood.  Life is too short for light/lite beer!  Seems I'm livin in a transitional period. CHEETO (aka Agent Orange) makes Nixon look like a saint.  
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  • MeTed
    MeTed Posts: 800
    Nice post, smoked is my favorite way to cook chicken. Sometimes I cut into pieces and sometimes I spatchcock it. But I cook at 250 indirect for about 5 hours, putting corn on the cob on the last hour and a half. You are right about the cherry,great flavor and color. I am heading out right now to light the Egg and smoke two of them!
    Belleville, Michigan

    Just burnin lump in Sumpter
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  • CigarCityEgger
    CigarCityEgger Posts: 2,109
    Looks killer 
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  • Theophan
    Theophan Posts: 2,656
    I don' usually like a lot of smoke on chicken (main exception is jerk, where I do), but I gotta say that looks great and I may have to try it sometime.
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  • gbvinla
    gbvinla Posts: 96
    You can't argue with success. Good looking cook there.
    Large BGE x2  Now we're cookin' in Dothan Al.
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  • Teefus
    Teefus Posts: 1,259
    Nice job. I'll do big packs of chicken legs that way. The meat is almost falling off the bone when they're done and the smoke flavor is fantastic. Boneless thighs work great too. I will say that while dark meat works great, breasts do not fare as well. They tend to get a little dry.
    Michiana, South of the border.
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  • eznosow
    eznosow Posts: 10
    saluki2007 said:
    Great job.  I love cherry smoke on chicken.  Have you tried letting it go a little bit longer and pulled instead of cutting into sections?  That's my goto for smoked chicken.
    This was my first try smoking a chicken. I did read about the possibility of a pulled chicken, but I was skeptical--does chicken really have enough collagen to break down in that way? Interesting. Thanks for the compliment!
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  • nolaegghead
    nolaegghead Posts: 42,109
    eznosow said:
    saluki2007 said:
    Great job.  I love cherry smoke on chicken.  Have you tried letting it go a little bit longer and pulled instead of cutting into sections?  That's my goto for smoked chicken.
    This was my first try smoking a chicken. I did read about the possibility of a pulled chicken, but I was skeptical--does chicken really have enough collagen to break down in that way? Interesting. Thanks for the compliment!
    Looks great!

    Collagen isn't a requirement for pulled meat.  You can pull anything if it's cooked enough.  Something connects all the cells and muscle fibers and all that, and that something can be cooked enough to pull.

    Typically we do cook the bejesus out of stuff that's tough with plenty of collagen and connective tissue, but you can pull a filet mignon enough to pull.  It's not always an improvement, however, as the gelatin from the collagen makes it seem moist, as does fat.  Nothing you can't add post-morten though. 
    ______________________________________________
    I love lamp..
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  • SmokingPiney
    SmokingPiney Posts: 2,319
    Great color on that bird.

    Well done! 
    Living the good life smoking and joking
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