Alright amazing ribs'rs... I'm finally good at making/smoking pulled pork,thanksgiving turkey,xmas ham, brisket, steak. My trusty treager elite has been used atleast once a week since I got it last year. Sadly I can't master the chicken! I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm the guy who follows the recipe by the letter acouple times before trying to tweak it. I'm just not getting it down, it comes out to dry.
Do I inject? I have a rotisiree-err thingy should I just slow roast it like that? I want like butter chicken! I'm not even worried about the seasoning right now I just want tender meat.
Scotch: Current favorite- The Arran (anything by them), Glenmorangie 12yr Lasanta, sherry cask finished. The Balvenie Double Wood, also like Oban 18yr, and The Glenlivet Nadurra (Oloroso sherry cask finished) among others. Neat please.
About meReal name: Aaron
Location: Farwell, Michigan - near Clare (dead center of lower peninsula).
Occupation:
Healthcare- Licensed & Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) at MyMichigan Health, a University of Michigan Health System.
I'll move this to the Recipes and Techniques > Chicken Turkey and Duck thread since it fits in there better, and will be searchable in the future.
When I do a chicken, I follow Meathead's Georgia Brown's Smoked Yard Bird recipe. I use my rib rub to dry brine it. I wont go into details why, but I've tried the no salt rub and sep dry brine, but for my personal rub I feel the whole salted intact rub works great. Anyway, I spatchcock it (cut it along the back bone and butterfly it open. I then trim all the large wads of skin & fat off, while keeping it as intact as possible.
Rinse the outside & inside of the carcass to get the ooey gooies out. Pat dry the whole thing with paper towels.
Spray a light coating of PAM or any spray oil (or you could use regular veg or corn oil, etc) and then add a generous shaking of rub. I pat it in to avoid excess falloff. Then I flip the bird over and do the same all around it. I try not to have any white areas of the chicken, I want the rub on every square centimeter if possible.
Let it sit in the fridge, in open air, for 2-6hrs, whatever you have time for...overnight will work too.
Preheat your smoker, get it to 325-350. Take the bird out of the fridge immediately before placing in the smoker, do not let it warm up to room temp. Ever.
Place it on your smoker, no water pan. Place it breats-up, inside of the carcass down. If you're using an offset that has a hotter side, keep the bulk of the breast meat on the cooler side. You may find covering the drumstick endsn and wing tips with foil to be a good move so they don't blacken. Place the temp probe(s) into the deepest part of the breast(s), not touching bone, center of the meat portion. Keep smoker at or close to 325. Apple & cherry or pecan wood work great on chicken.
Cook until the breast meat reaches 165, check both sides if you do not already have a probe in each side. Use an instant-read to make sure the coolest area is 160-165. You can pull the chicken off at 160 and allow carryover cooking to raise it to 165, this is the recommended safe temp. The legs and thighs will be much higher, this is perfectly fine. You may find they're 170-185. They'll still be juicy and great. Breasts are very dry if overcooked so don't let them get above 165.
Following this at 325 usually takes from 1.5 hrs to over 2. The average is about 2 hrs.
This yields a very juicy chicken, and a fairly crisp skin, but you can further crisp the skin up by putting under your broiler for a couple minutes until it looks right. Or put it on over direct heat on your grill, but this can cause some serious flareups so i don't so that anymore.
I know the BBQ competition guys inject usually... not sure that is necessary at home though. And most recommend cooking at 325 to you get a crispy skin
I frequently do "ultimate chicken" to practice for thanksgiving turkey. Turns out great, concepts are the same, just takes a lot less time, cheaper, and better sized meal for 2. I typically half the gravy recipe too. I still haven't bothered with spatchcocking, might try it some day. Also, there is no shame in injecting butter into the chicken - yummy!
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