First Time Chicken!!!

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jrhawkdad

Newbie
Original poster
Nov 28, 2013
4
10
The pork shoulder went pretty well last weekend. Going with the bird this weekend! I have been doing beer can chicken on my Weber Kettle for a few years now, so this is not totally new. I always brine the chicken and have had great results. Simple brine-salt, sugar, soy and a little olive oil. I am smoking at 250 per a recipe I have in my Dad Gum Good book and will check the temp after about 2 hours. I love pulled chicken and can't wait to see how this turns out. By the way, the MES 30 is holding temp around 250 in the lovely 9 degree weather we have here today in the Iowa tundra
 
I too am going to try smoking a couple chickens this weekend.  I did a brisket for the first time last weekend and it turned out good. For your brine, what measurements do you use?  And do you brine it over night?
 
The chicken turned out good. It took about 3 hours. I smoked with Hickory for about the first 1.5 hours. It may have been a tad oversmoked or I need something a little milder next time. Learning experience. The brine recipe I follow is http://allrecipes.com/recipe/simple-chicken-brine/  and it has always worked well for us. I brined this one for about 6 hours, I have never done one overnight. I wasn't sure how to orient the chicken in the smoker so I set it on my beer can chicken tool. 

Best of luck! I am hoping to try some sausage this weekend.

 
A way i learned on this forum is to spatchcock it.  There's a video on youtube how to do it, but basically you take kitchen sheers and cut down one side of the back bone, then cut down the other side and pull the back bone out.  Then the harder part, well at last it was harder for me to tell what exactly was going on.  Locate the breastbone and you put a small cut where it begins and then the chicken lays flat, split right open.
 
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