My first smoke, and it's chicken

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seapro220

Fire Starter
Original poster
Dec 17, 2014
47
12
Columbia, sc
I joined the other day after lurking around, have found some good advice, ordered some extra items (AMNS and dual temp gauge) and thought I'd dive right in.  So here it goes - 

6.75 young tyson bird - washed and ready for brining 


slaughterhouse bird brining receipe - will brine for about 5-6 hours in the fridge, after it's cooled - 


I'll be spatcotching the bird after the brine, seasoning it well, then into the smoker for a couple of hours or so.

Getting anxious and hungry thinking about.  Don't have the additional dual-temp gauges yet, but know my grill is pretty close so I'll be using the 'build-in' temp gauge and keeping an eye on it closely.

more pics as it 'matures' ..
 
Smoked chicken is awesome. Unless you crank the heat to ~350*F, the skin is not. Make a choices before you cook: low n slow with rubber skin or higher heat with crisp skin. Either way the flesh will be great!
 
Smoked chicken is awesome. Unless you crank the heat to ~350*F, the skin is not. Make a choices before you cook: low n slow with rubber skin or higher heat with crisp skin. Either way the flesh will be great!
Or you can do both. Crank it up for the last half hour to crisp up the skin.
 
I'd heard that the chicken skin can be rubbery or soft, so I thought after the bird was 'about done' (suggestions on temps would be great) I' move it over to my regular grill and 'polish' it off.  If I remember correctly, the breast should be 165 and the thighs about 170.  Does this sound right?  Since they are so close in temps, I'd thought that whenever the breasts were just about done - and since I'm going to move it over to the grill for the skin - then I'd just move it over then, and polish up the skin while finishing up the thighs.
 
 
I joined the other day after lurking around, have found some good advice, ordered some extra items (AMNS and dual temp gauge) and thought I'd dive right in.  So here it goes - 

6.75 young tyson bird - washed and ready for brining 


slaughterhouse bird brining receipe - will brine for about 5-6 hours in the fridge, after it's cooled - 


I'll be spatcotching the bird after the brine, seasoning it well, then into the smoker for a couple of hours or so.

Getting anxious and hungry thinking about.  Don't have the additional dual-temp gauges yet, but know my grill is pretty close so I'll be using the 'build-in' temp gauge and keeping an eye on it closely.

more pics as it 'matures' ..
I would just like to remind you to wash all the brine off that bird and dry it really well before you rub it down. This will help with it not ending up too salty. I forgot to do this once and ruined an entire turkey. You can pat down with paper towels and air dry for a few hours in the fridge or use a hair dryer or heat gun. It will really help in getting good skin in the end. my public service announcement 
 
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I'd heard that the chicken skin can be rubbery or soft, so I thought after the bird was 'about done' (suggestions on temps would be great) I' move it over to my regular grill and 'polish' it off.  If I remember correctly, the breast should be 165 and the thighs about 170.  Does this sound right?  Since they are so close in temps, I'd thought that whenever the breasts were just about done - and since I'm going to move it over to the grill for the skin - then I'd just move it over then, and polish up the skin while finishing up the thighs.
Yep you are on the right track to great chicken. Just don't forget to rest it for 15 minutes or so so the juices can redistribute. Happy smokin. timber  another note, when you spatch usually the whole bird will get done at the same time. If at the end the thighs aren't quite done though you can tent the breasts with foil for a few more minutes to keep them from getting over done.
 
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Birds a curing, so the count down has begun. I'm think of 200 to 225 at the whole time. Sound about right? Also, I guess everybody takes the un-needed racks out. Probably a stupid ? But somebody's got to ask them, huh ?
 
I would go at least 225 º or higher 

Gary
 
Birds in the hot box - currently set at 250.  Here's a couple of pic's so far ..

getting lubricated ..


blurred pic - but back pic looks nice of the spatch'd bird.



what i had on hand for seasoning - 


using a fruit wood mix - and she's cooking away ..


more later ..
 
My first smoke is a chicken and it's in the smoker now too!  :)

I'm cooking mine whole so already read some good tips here...  I set the box for 275 but it seems to be hanging around 250...  I have a 30" MES and am using the cold smoker attachment...I do wonder if I'm not using good enough extension cords to deal with the 2,000 watts...

Hope yours turns out well!  I'll start a thread on mine when it's done...
 
After an hour my temp has risen to 115 degrees. This seems king of fast so I'm going to lower the temp a bit and see how it goes.

More later. .
 
I don't think that the MES 30 has a 1200 watt unit, but rather a 800 watt heating unit. Did you check your grill temp against a known good unit? Maybe your built in unit is off.. ??
 
3 hours and it's done.

The finished product


rested and cut up



Plated for dinner

And lastly..


All I can say is .. OMG !!

That's to all for their help and suggeations. Off tomorrow to get some "bellies" and start some bacon. Might look for a Boston buts tomorrow and do some pulled pork this week also.

Mmmm good !!
 
I don't think that the MES 30 has a 1200 watt unit, but rather a 800 watt heating unit. Did you check your grill temp against a known good unit? Maybe your built in unit is off.. ??
Yea, the MES 30" is 800 watts and the Cold Smoker attachment is 1200 watts.  I've heard the built-in temp gauge on the MES is not very accurate.  Yesterday, when I seasoned it, it seemed pretty good once it got to temp.  Today, it was off by about 20 degrees!  It was reading ~275 but my Mavrik ET-733 was reading ~255.  I have checked the Mavrik w/ boiling water and one probe read 212 and the other read 210 so they're pretty much spot on...
 
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How did your whole chicken turn out?  You do want to check to be sure your cord is rated for that many watts as it might be dangerous if not.  Are you using 2 different plugs - or combining/sharing  your 800 and 1800 off of the same cord?  You might also want to add a 'brick' or 2 in there to help hold the heat in.  Washed up they are really cheap and help to maintain temp fluxuations really well.
 
Yes, it came out pretty good! The breast was moist and the smoke not overpowering! My family does not really like smoked foods but I was able to make several 4 ounce portion packs that I froze!

I think the brick idea makes sense...I will probably do that. I used the thickest gauge extension cord I had but I had added an outlet extender so I think that might have adversely affected the performance...not sure... The cords did not get warm or anything...I just needed to get this far away from the house because the smoke does get into everything...
O[ATTACHMENT=1818]Chicken1.jpg (970k. jpg file)[/ATTACHMENT]
 
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I am not sure why my reply reposted your pic?! I am using an iPad...maybe that is the issue...sorry!

****fixed the reply, not sure how to delete this one...
 
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