Chicken, whole and parts

[rugsrme]

Well the results were "OK".

These were some frozen chicken we had in the freezer and I needed to use it up so I decided to do some learning with them.

I did whole chicken marinaded in the Mexican road side.

The parts I brined over night just salt and brown sugar and used the snake bite rub recipie.

I used cherry wood chips with charcoal.

I battled the wind and the coals to keep an even temp.

I liked the thighs but my wife didn't like the breasts.

Thighs

Breasts and backs.

Of course I had to throw some ATB's on too

I wrapped up the whole chicken to take over to the bro-in-law to snack on watching football while the rug rats are out begging for candy, so I didn't get a picture of it.

 

[rugsrme]

The whole chicken didn't turn out so good.  It taste pretty good but it was kind of dry, not jerkey,  but not as jucy as I had hopped. Like I said, I was fighting the wind all day and had troubles keeping the temperature up and I think it took longer than it should have.  Also, I don't think I'll use briquets in this kind of wind again, there was a coating of ash on it that I wiped off and I don't eat the skin anyway, but I didn't like how it turned out.

 

[adiochiro3]

Keep at it.  You'll get better results in the future.  If you provide more smoke details, maybe some of us can help get you through the next round.

One tip I can give is to start your whole birds breast side down and keep them there til about the last hour or so; juices run down into the breast meat and keep it from drying out.

 

[mballi3011]

Well that's just about how most of us here learned. By our mistakes and if they are bad enough we willo never do it again. So happy learning a good lesson.

 

[rugsrme]

Smoke wise, I had to keep adding coal to it, allot of it, I'm using a grillpro (ecb style) leaky, smoke was billowing everywhere so I think the wind really had something to do with them burning up so fast and not keeping the heat in the smoker. I also got the water pan out of there about half way through, for some reason this unit doesn't stay any higher than 150-175 when it is in there.
I really wish I had your "breast down" advice sooner, I think that may have helped allot, when the internal temp of the breast was 160, it was well after I was getting 165 in the thighs.
Lessons are being learned, notes being taken.
Thanks,
Q