I am having a great time with my new smoker. We had friends over for dinner last weekend so we decided to do a smoked chicken. After doing my research on SMF I felt ready to go. I did not get as many Q-views as I wanted because we were having such a great time. I still did get a few.
I brined the chicken for about 8 hours using the slaughter house brine. I would have done it overnight but I wanted the chicken thawed before it went into the brine. I pulled out of the brine when I got home, rinsed it off and patted it dry. I rubbed with EVOO and Emeril's Essence. I wanted to us thebeer can method, so i took an empty pop can and punched several holes in the upper third of the can to allow more hot steam to come out. We had a bottle of good sake in the refrigerator so I through a chicken bullion cube in about a cup of sake and heated it up in the micro wave. I put the sake/bullion mix in the can and put the chicken on the rack. Then we headed for the smoker.
The bird looked a little lonely in there but I didn't have time to plan much else to go in with it. I will do a better job of planning next time. I used pecan wood and only added a couple of chunks at a time to maintain a nice TBS. I was able to maintain the temperature between 275 and 290 without too much trouble. This was my 6th smoke with the new smoker and I was able to get the temperature balanced from top to bottom of the smoke chamber very quickly. I am really happy with the dual stack design.
The bird was done in about three hours. The breast was at 165 and the thighs were at 170. I pulled it off and put it in my Weber gas barbecue that had been on HHH for about 5 minutes to finish making the skin crispy. The chicken turned out fabulous.
The skin was crispy and the meat was very moist. There was just the right amount of smoke without being over powering. I am not sure if the sake made any significant difference one way or another. I just know that everyone really liked the results. I got so excited about eating that I forgot to take a picture of the bird after it was cut up before it was served. So the last view is kind of a carnage picture.
Needless to say, I see a lot of smoked chickens in my future.
I brined the chicken for about 8 hours using the slaughter house brine. I would have done it overnight but I wanted the chicken thawed before it went into the brine. I pulled out of the brine when I got home, rinsed it off and patted it dry. I rubbed with EVOO and Emeril's Essence. I wanted to us thebeer can method, so i took an empty pop can and punched several holes in the upper third of the can to allow more hot steam to come out. We had a bottle of good sake in the refrigerator so I through a chicken bullion cube in about a cup of sake and heated it up in the micro wave. I put the sake/bullion mix in the can and put the chicken on the rack. Then we headed for the smoker.
The bird looked a little lonely in there but I didn't have time to plan much else to go in with it. I will do a better job of planning next time. I used pecan wood and only added a couple of chunks at a time to maintain a nice TBS. I was able to maintain the temperature between 275 and 290 without too much trouble. This was my 6th smoke with the new smoker and I was able to get the temperature balanced from top to bottom of the smoke chamber very quickly. I am really happy with the dual stack design.
The bird was done in about three hours. The breast was at 165 and the thighs were at 170. I pulled it off and put it in my Weber gas barbecue that had been on HHH for about 5 minutes to finish making the skin crispy. The chicken turned out fabulous.
The skin was crispy and the meat was very moist. There was just the right amount of smoke without being over powering. I am not sure if the sake made any significant difference one way or another. I just know that everyone really liked the results. I got so excited about eating that I forgot to take a picture of the bird after it was cut up before it was served. So the last view is kind of a carnage picture.
Needless to say, I see a lot of smoked chickens in my future.
