Hi!
Just got my first smoker. I went with Horizon’s 20” offset smoker. I did a 4 hour seasoning cook. Going to smoke chicken this weekend. I’m excited!
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America!
Hi there welcome, and congrats!
Chicken is great to practice with and as Al mentioned cheap.
Just an FYI with some SUPER IMPORTANT info about chicken skin. If you smoke any poultry that has skin on it the skin will come out tough and rubbery unless cooked at like 325F smoker temp. So get that smoker temp up for the skin on chicken and you won't have a disappointing first chicken smoke :)
Secondly, to avoid dry chicken if you do whole chickens or chicken breast it does WONDERS if you brine in salt + water over night or like 24 hours is even better. The simplest brine in the world is water + salt.
The amount of salt is easy to calculate. Take the weight of the water + weight of the salt in grams or ounces (never pounds) and multiply by .02 and that will be how many grams or ounces of salt you need to dissolve in the water ( I use the blender to dissolve).
Throw your whole chickens or chicken breast in that and over night or 24hrs you will have chicken that shouldn't dry out on you. This is not needed for dark meat.
Finally, if you want the simplest hassle free chicken smoke ever so you can learn how your smoker behaves and not worry about how the meat will come out... Boneless skinless chicken thighs are hard to mess up. Just pull them out of the packaging, season, throw on the smoker, smoke at any smoker temp, and when they hit 180F degrees Internal Temp (IT) they will be done and not squishy. Simple!
Let us know how it comes out! :)
Anyhow good luck with your first chicken smoke
