On Sunday I threw a whole chicken (got on sale for $5) in there with small pieces of hickory and pecan and let er rip setting the CS at 225 degrees. I had the Maverick probe in the breast and the CS probe in a thigh.
The Maverick BBQ probe was steady at 236 degrees once the smoker reached temperature so I lowered the CS temperature to 215 degrees after about an hour into the cook.
I pulled the bird when the breast temperature showed 161 degrees and the thigh was 172 according to the meat probes at about 2 1/2 hours.
I didn't take any pictures but the bird wasn't pretty to look at being pretty much black on the skin (I rubbed CS chicken rub and some olive oil on the outer skin and shoved some CS chicken rub under the breast skin).
Wrapped it in foil for about an hour and served it up.
Observations:
1. The skin was rubbery and not very edible (expected based on feedback on this forum)
2. The breast meat was done to perfection. It was probably the best I ever had. We are a dark meat family but everyone wanted more breast meat.
3. The thigh meat was done but could have used a little more time.
4. The smoky flavor and the moistness of the meat was simply incredible. However, the next time I will back off the wood a little and probably just use pecan.
5. I am fairly confident the Maverick readings are more accurate than the CS so I will adjust accordingly in the future.
6. As long as you monitor temperatures, this unit really is fool proof. I do need to improve my foil lining technique however.
All in all, a good first time cook using a sacrificial bird and it gave me some good info for my planned PB on Mother's day. My family loved the results but my wife is afraid I will want to smoke everything from now on (I think there might be a job security issue there
).Again, thanks to all the veteran smokers here who made sure I knew all the answers before the questions arose!
