PIC Saturday Beer Can Chicken

Hmmmmm...I wonder if transferring them over to a grill (offset over coals) for the last hour would render the skin a bit and add some crispness.

I think you're right MQ. I'll either do that or pop them into the oven to crisp the skin up a little bit next time. I'm using 1 whole chicken for enchiladas later in the week anyway so crispy skin wasn't important this time. Thanks!

Slim, you didn’t mention the temperature that you cooked the chicken. I have found that when doing beer butts in my AQ that cooking at 275 degrees and basting with melted butter twice toward the end of cooking helps tremendously with the skin. Also that if the chicken is trussed it will cook more evenly.
Hope this helps.
Tom

Thanks for the input Tom. I set the temp on my 040 to 275 but the display never got that high. The highest that it displayed was 263, at about the 1 3/4 hour mark. I'll admit I didn't put a second probe in to monitor the cooking chamber this time. I guess for some reason I thought leaving the birds untrussed (is that even a word?!) would allow them to cook more evenly, expose more of the skin to the smoke and heat. I'll truss them next time and compare the results.

I was a little surprised at the cooking time. After reading quite a few posts on whole chickens I was expecting more like a 4+ hour cook to bring them up to temp. Question- could having the liquid in the beer cans speed up the cooking time? It seemed like there was quite a bit of steam coming from the vent hole on the Cookshack.

Here is another picture, they were at about 150 (thigh) at this point. I probably could have basted them at this point. I'll put this in my notes too.

Again, thanks for the suggestions.

kz

Slim, I do not know the highest temp setting on the 040. If it will not go to 275 just set on highest temp possible and keep records from there. As far as the contents in your can speeding the cooking progress, it may help a little but mainly is used for flavor more than cooking. If you want to speed the cooking time try brining. The additional moister in your product will cause the external heat to conduct into the meat much faster and give you a more moist end product. You may find you can shave a hour or more from your cooking time.

Basic Poultry Brine Recipe
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup Kosher salt
1 gal. water
1Tbs. whole peppercorns
1 Tbs. rosemary

Mix ingredients in 1/2 gallon warm water and stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Add rest of water. Place poultry in large plastic bag or other non corrosive container and add brine to cover. Refrigerate minimum of two hours or overnight for best results. Remove from brine,rinse and pat dry with paper towels and allow to air dry in refrigerator for a min of two hours or overnight before cooking. This will help with the skin. If your recipe calls for salt you may want to omit it if poultry is brined.

Trussing your poultry will help keep from overcooking the wings and legs.

Hope this helps. If you have any more questions please ask.
Tom

Ask me again why I chose a Cookshack. A more helpful group of folks would be pretty hard to find! Thanks!

I'm with Mr T, I love to brine whole chickens. Most everything that I have learned about brining has come from Smokin' and his brining 101.

Some pretty good reading there if you ask me. He makes a point of teaching the proper temp to do brining, along with the cause/effects of brining.

I strongly recommend reading it before your first efforts.

Thanks fellers! I'll make that my homework assignment for the weekend and follow up with a couple more chickens. look for my comparison/results soon.

Karl