Smoked Chicken

I love to smoke whole chickens as they are light and have delicious flavor.  Smoking whole chickens is simple (or it can be) and they have the shortest cook time of anything I do on a regular basis.  Hopefully this blog will help you with some tips and tricks that I've picked up over the years.

In learning how to smoke chickens Meathead and the guys at Amazing Ribs were my main educational resource.  I never have been a believer in the beer can method and Amazing Ribs has a scientific article that confirmed a lot of what I had suspected for sometime and here is a link to check it out, Debunking Beer Can Chicken.   To help the chicken cook evenly and keep it moist I like to use their spatchcock method, Spatchcocking and Butterflying Poultry. These two articles have really influenced what I do regularly and I love the Amazing Ribs site.

Ingredients:
1 Whole Chicken
1/2 Cup melted butter
Smokey Bey's BBQ Rub

Instructions:
1. Prep smoker and preheat to 250F.

2. Rinse the chicken, remove the spine, and turn over press down firmly on the breast to finish butter flying the bird. Removing the spine is easiest if you have a pear of poultry shears.

3. Inject the chicken with the melted butter. (I take care to evenly injected all parts of the chicken)

4. Generously apply the rub to the chicken.  Make sure to work the rub into the skin. Then allow the rub to soak in while the smoker finishes getting up to temp.

5. Place the chicken in the smoker with your favorite wood (pecan for me) until the internal temp of the chicken reaches 165F.  It normally takes me 3.5 to 4.5 hours to cook a chicken depending on the size of the bird.

6. Once the chicken is finished carve and serve immediately.

I love whole chickens because they are tasty when fresh and versatile as leftovers (I like a good left over chicken wrap).  The best part is that these chcikens can be wrapped in foil and saved for another night.  I will cook a chicken with a pork butt on a Sunday then wrap it when finished and we'll reheat it in the oven for an easy Monday evening meal. If you have any questions just shoot me an email at m_overbey@hotmail.com and thanks for reading.