first time smoking anything going to start with chicken....

my advice would be to start with pork.  my experience is that chicken is better left to the grill, not the smoker.
 

Hi Drew, Welcome.

Some of the best chicken I've ever tasted has come out of my mini-WSM, so I think you're on the right track.

As for advice, here's what's worked for me. First, the birds need only to be in the brine for a few hours at most. Chickens are a good bit smaller than turkeys, thus take a lot less time for both brining and cooking. 24 hours might render a "hammy" taste and texture, depending on how strong your brine is. There are a lot of brine recipes here and elsewhere, but a good starting point is a ratio of 1 cup of kosher salt to 1 gallon of water. I'd steer clear of iodized table salt since it can impart a bitter metallic flavor.

As for the smoker, your WSM may want to run pretty hot the first few cooks. Since you're doing chicken, don't sweat it. Let it do what it wants. I've had good luck with spatchcocked chicken all the way up to 450˚. That brings me to my next point. If you've never heard of spatchcocking a chicken, look it up. It's my favorite way of doing chicken. It speeds your cooking time and allows the white and dark meat to cook evenly. If you have the time and aren't intimidated by getting Medieval on a chicken, it's well worth the effort.

Lastly, you mentioned "throw the chickens in for about 2.5-3 hours and see what happens.". Well, you can pretty much dictate what will happen if you take a little time and effort. Get a probe thermometer. You can get a cheap one for around 12 bucks. I'm talking the kind with the probe on the end of a wire, that you can insert and leave in. Cook your chicken until it's 165˚ in the breast. the thigh should be at least 170˚. If you pull it as soon as it reaches these temps, it'll be safely cooked but still incredibly juicy.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out!!
 

What you have planned should be fine.  I actually smoked a couple of chickens today on my WSM.  I only have about a half a dozen cooks on the WSM, so it's fairly new. 

I spatchcocked one bird and placed it on the lower rack of the WSM.


And placed the second bird on the top rack beer can style.


The chickens came out great.



I cooked each one to a IT of 165 degrees in the breast, and a IT of 175 degrees in the leg and thigh.  For these chickens I did a dry brine by covering the chicken in a rub and letting them sit in the frig for a couple hours prior to smoking them.  I maintained a temp of 275 to 280 degrees throughout the cook, and pulled them off at just under 3 hours.

The one suggestion I would make, is if you plan to brine the chickens, use a low or no salt rub, otherwise the chicken may get a bit salty.

Good luck.  You going to have a lot of fun.  Let us know how it turns out.

hard to beat a beer can chicken on the smoker. i like doing them on the uds. cooks a lil higher temps yet yeilds great smoke flavor.

I would suggest that you do not use water in the pan if you want to reach higher temps in the 275 to 300 range.  Water acts as a heat sink, and will not allow your WSM to get much higher than 225 degrees.  Personally I just cover my water pan in foil and run with nothing in it.  Some WSM owners use clay saucers, sand, and even foil rolled up in balls to place in their water pans as heat sinks.  All of which will allow you to reach the higher temps, but I have found to this point that cooking with an empty pan has worked well.

timleo said:

my advice would be to start with pork.  my experience is that chicken is better left to the grill, not the smoker.
 

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