1st Beer Butt Chicken -- lacking flavor

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floridasteve

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
SMF Premier Member
Jun 16, 2014
818
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Bradenton
[VIDEO][/VIDEO]Did my first beer butt chicken yesterday. Small bird, prudue, not frozen, bought same day. Injected with 2/3 beer, 1/3 honey plus good teaspoon of garlic powder. Used Yengling Light. Rubbed with Montreal Spices. Cooked in Ole Smokey electric smoker at 280 or so until internal temp of breast came to 168. Wrapped in tin foil, wrapped in towel and placed in small cooler for about 45 minutes.

Chicken was VERY tender and VERY moist, but seemed to be lacking any real flavor to me. Wife thought it was good, but then she loves me and thinks everything I do is wonderful (yes you are right, she is watching me type, LOL). I've had more flavorful chicken at Woody's.

Any thoughts?

Ps. Here is a pix

 
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WOW, yeah, that definitely looks tender!!! Did you check your temp probe for accuracy? It has nothing to do with flavor, but the bird seems to be falling apart, to the point I'd say the I/T was possibly around 190* or so.

Was the smoke too light, or was the spice blend too bland?

Eric
 
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Well, I'm thinking WAY overdone and with the foiling and toweling I'm thinking rubber chicken skin as well. Personally, I rarely inject birds preferring a heavy overnight rubbing. I don't like whole chicken in crock pots either. The last time I did a BCC I used indirect heat and rotated the bird towards the coals to get browned all over. Came out OK and that was the last one I did. 

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Easy fix. Brine overnight in 1 cup sea salt to 1 gal. water ratio. Remove from water and rinse with fresh water. Do any sort of rub or injecting or whatever you like to flavor it. Cook to IT 165. Done, don't wrap in foil. Your cooking temp was OK but 300-325 would probably have been better.
 
Thanks for the advice, guys. You've rejuvenated my interest in trying another one with more prep time. Brining, spicer rub overnight.
 
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