I decided last week to toss a chicken into the smoker this weekend. So after work friday night I swung by the store to pick one up. They had packages of 2 - 3lb'ers so I figured I'd grab that and toss one in the freezer. After I got home lastnight I though a little more about it and decided to "kill 2 birds with one smoker"
I knew I wanted to do one from a recipe posted in this section by bwsmith_2000 it can be found here Barbequed whole chicken and I wanted to try out a dipping sauce that Crazyhorse had posted in the "Sauces, Rubs & Marinades" section. It can be found here SC-Style Mustard Base Sauce
I wasnt really sure what I was going to do with the second bird until reading a bit more around here and finding some information on brining. I found a couple on here and did a search on Google and came up with one that looked pretty good.
First thing this morning I got the smoker all set up and ready to go. I started working on getting the birds ready shortly after that. I had them resting in the fridge by 9:00 for an estimated start time of 1:00. I got the smoker all fired up and tossed the birds in at 1:15. I decided to go with an all Hickory smoke wth temps between 225-240. I had 3 small chunks in the firebox. I had a pretty good smoke going and my temp was fairly steady for the first hour or so. I noticed that my meat temps were rising pretty quick while my chamber temps were nice and steady. I had figured a total cook time (from what I have read) of around 4 hours. They way the bird temps were rising I was worried they would only be on for 2 hours max. I decided to do a quick check on my probes and saw that I had placed one bird right up against the chamber probe. I moved the offending bird and cleaned the probe. I had the door open for a bit of time so my temps had dropped off. The themometer was reading 240F at this point so I knew that I was getting a false reading before. I turned down the heat a bit to get slow the cooking down. I finally got things back to where they should be (225ish) and let the smoke do its thing. The meat temps slowed down as well and it looked like it may go for about 3 hours before it was time to pull them. I was shooting for a breast temp of 167. At 3 o'clock I tossed on a couple of cobs of corn. By 3:50 the birds had reached their goal temps. I pulled them from the smoker and wrapped them in foil and towels and tossed them in the oven (turned off) to rest. I pulled the corn at 4:30 and tossed them in the oven as well. I mixed up a batch of the SC Sauce and tore into the birds.
Both birds were cooked perfectly. Meat was tender and juicy. The bird I had brined was our favorite while the other seemed to take on a lot more smoke flavour (Both cooked on same rack) We did find the SC Sauce had a bit too much pepper for our tastes. I will use it again but cut down on the amount of pepper used. It has a great tang to it that we both liked.
I was going to take a pic or two before we dug into them but I couldnt wait.
These are the best you will get
I knew I wanted to do one from a recipe posted in this section by bwsmith_2000 it can be found here Barbequed whole chicken and I wanted to try out a dipping sauce that Crazyhorse had posted in the "Sauces, Rubs & Marinades" section. It can be found here SC-Style Mustard Base Sauce
I wasnt really sure what I was going to do with the second bird until reading a bit more around here and finding some information on brining. I found a couple on here and did a search on Google and came up with one that looked pretty good.
First thing this morning I got the smoker all set up and ready to go. I started working on getting the birds ready shortly after that. I had them resting in the fridge by 9:00 for an estimated start time of 1:00. I got the smoker all fired up and tossed the birds in at 1:15. I decided to go with an all Hickory smoke wth temps between 225-240. I had 3 small chunks in the firebox. I had a pretty good smoke going and my temp was fairly steady for the first hour or so. I noticed that my meat temps were rising pretty quick while my chamber temps were nice and steady. I had figured a total cook time (from what I have read) of around 4 hours. They way the bird temps were rising I was worried they would only be on for 2 hours max. I decided to do a quick check on my probes and saw that I had placed one bird right up against the chamber probe. I moved the offending bird and cleaned the probe. I had the door open for a bit of time so my temps had dropped off. The themometer was reading 240F at this point so I knew that I was getting a false reading before. I turned down the heat a bit to get slow the cooking down. I finally got things back to where they should be (225ish) and let the smoke do its thing. The meat temps slowed down as well and it looked like it may go for about 3 hours before it was time to pull them. I was shooting for a breast temp of 167. At 3 o'clock I tossed on a couple of cobs of corn. By 3:50 the birds had reached their goal temps. I pulled them from the smoker and wrapped them in foil and towels and tossed them in the oven (turned off) to rest. I pulled the corn at 4:30 and tossed them in the oven as well. I mixed up a batch of the SC Sauce and tore into the birds.
Both birds were cooked perfectly. Meat was tender and juicy. The bird I had brined was our favorite while the other seemed to take on a lot more smoke flavour (Both cooked on same rack) We did find the SC Sauce had a bit too much pepper for our tastes. I will use it again but cut down on the amount of pepper used. It has a great tang to it that we both liked.
I was going to take a pic or two before we dug into them but I couldnt wait.
These are the best you will get
