Hints for first smoked chicken

[bigrnm13]

Can someone help me to attach my pics to the forum?  I keep getting a message that says I am not allowed to send any attachments.

Thanks.

 

[meyer]

Hi Bigrnm13,

That is most likely because your account needs to be approved. That will happend within a few days, and you will get a mail confirming this.

When uploading a photo you will need to have an album you can load your photos into, and the use the link to show your pictures.

Hope this helps

Kind regards

-Meyer

 

[sqwib]

Ditto on the higher temps, make sure to rub butter up under the skin at the breast are to keep from drying out, because you may dry out the breast before the thigh meat is at 180.

I just threw 2 on at about 350 - 375 for 90 minutes.

It was pretty good.

Here is a post from my blog "SQWIB'S RF Cooks" and a few pics, sorry its so long

"Beer Can Chicken"

[h2] [/h2]
Remember food safety especially with chicken, do not "cross contaminate" and keep a bleach based cleaner on hand to wipe everything down each step of the way.

When working with chicken get everything ready and mixed before ever handling the chicken.

Preheat RF to 350 degrees.

Mix some sweet basil with butter to rub up underneath the skin in the breast area.

Prepare your beer can and pour out half the beer, take a can opener and remove the top of the beer can.

Remove chicken from refrigerator, remove the gizzard goodie bag, rinse chicken and set aside.

Add the giblets neck and liver from the bag and a teaspoon of rosemary to the beer can.

If you want to make gravy, you can add salt and other spices such as garlic and onion powder and when you remove the can from the chicken, place in a pot and dress up a bit, get creative here.

Some people do not like the taste of liver, so you may not want to add the liver to the beer can if making gravy.

I have noticed that spices such as Rosemary added in the can really impart flavor into the chicken.

Place the Beer can on a cookie sheet. Rub chicken with olive oil and add your favorite rub or spices. Place chicken on the beer can.

Heat the RF up to about 350 degrees, remove the “Beer Can Chickens” from the cookie sheet and place directly on the grates.

Cook about 80 minutes, I did 90 minutes last time and it came out pretty good. The chicken makes for an incredible chicken salad the next day.

The safe temp to cook a whole chicken is 180 degrees; I don’t mind overcooking these guys because they still come out OK.

Safe cooking temp for whole chicken is 165 degrees, I apologize for the typo

FDA Link

Just make sure to get some butter up under the skin at the breast area, because the breast can dry out before the chicken is done.

Remove the chicken from the grill, place in a clean steamer pan and rest for about 15 minutes before carving.

If you are making gravy, do so while the chicken is resting.

Remove the skin and place on the still hot grates, carve the chicken and after the all the carving is done remove the skin and cut into strips to serve alongside the meat.

As you can see by the first photo, I did not rub these with olive oil or place any butter underneath the skin, however it still came out pretty good.

My next “Beer Can Chicken” will be cooked at 275 degrees for 90 minutes to see how much of a difference there is in cooking with different temperatures.

 

[sammy4chickens]

They look great, did the skin come out soft or crispy? They have Great Color and look fantastic from here and I'll bet they were juicy too!

In case you can't tell, I love chicken, in any shape or form and I think they look GREAT in your pictures.

 

[hbark]

Hey chicken is easy!

 

[tyotrain]

yes my buddy build it for me they work great for two chickens. I think he got the idea from bass pro shop so i am sure u can buy them

 

[chefdave007]

well try doing one upside down on the can,, breast wing wrap in foil ..cook 30 mins then remove the foil and finish, you will keep the moisture in the breast and the thigh and leg fat will baste this.try it ..also paint the wings with hot sauce and its a conversation piece to all... just ask chef dave im the one with lots of ideas to SHARE...chefdave007aol.com

 

[asher]

Wow, that sounds amazing! I'll have to try it.

 

[vic81]

well try doing one upside down on the can,, breast wing wrap in foil ..cook 30 mins then remove the foil and finish, you will keep the moisture in the breast and the thigh and leg fat will baste this.try it ..also paint the wings with hot sauce and its a conversation piece to all... just ask chef dave im the one with lots of ideas to SHARE...chefdave007aol.com

Do any of you guys brine the chicken first before smoking it??

 

[bigrnm13]

Hi guys,

Still haven't gotten a response for my 08/23/10 post.  I am wondering what I did wrong with my temps.

Also, I received an email from Meyer about how to post pics onto this forum, but I have not gotten confirmation from Admin on how to do this.  Please let me know as I want to continue my contributions to this forum.

Thanks.

 

[sqwib]

Well guys,

I did my first smoking attempt last night.  I smoked two chickens.  I will send the pics later when I figure out how to do it. Here are the details as best I remember:

I have a charbroiler offset firebox smoker that I just put together last weekend.  My first smoker. I put about a chimney starter worth of un-lit charcoal briquettes on the bottom of a box I made.  Then I added a few apple wood chips. (they were soaked for about an hour in water.) Then I added a chimney starter of lit coals on top with some more chips on top of that.

I used Kingsford Charcoal briguettes because that is all I had at home and didn't have time to go to the store.

I have looked at a lot of information here on this fabulous forum, and it helped me tremendously.  From rubs to the way to cook the chickens.

I decided to cut the chickens in half and put them in the smoker skin side up like some of you have suggested.  I did put a water container close to the firebox for added moisture, again, like some of you have suggested.

I had the chickens in the smoker for 4 hours exactly. They came out looking very good and tasting very good.  However, I did have some problems.

I could not get the temp to go up past 300 in the smoker.  Also, I didn't get the chicken breast temp up to 165.  I could only get it up to 124.  Don't know why.

I tried not to peak, but being my first time, it was very hard to resist, not only for the chicken part, but because I had a temp gauge inside the smoker, and wanted to know what the temp was inside.  I have to get another temp gauge. 

I also had to keep adding coals into the firebox, as I could see the temp fall dramatically after about an hour and a half.  I tried to do the minion method of charcoaling, but for some reason, the temp would only go up to 300 near the firebox, and 200 or so at the other end of the smoker.

I really couldn't relax and have a cold one inside because I was worried about the temp of the smoker and chicken.  Don't know what I did wrong.

I took the chicken out after 4 hours in the smoker and had to put in the oven for about 30 minutes to get the chicken cooked up right.  That bothered me a bit.

I did not brine the chicken because I don't have a container big enough for two chickens or the space in the fridge for brining.  I understand it has to be kept cold for brining.  So I decided to just rub some oil and butter and a dry rub on them instead. 

The flavor came out great, and it looked really good too, it's just that the temps were giving me hell.

Any suggestions and replys would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Big "R" 

Hi guys,

Still haven't gotten a response for my 08/23/10 post.  I am wondering what I did wrong with my temps.

Also, I received an email from Meyer about how to post pics onto this forum, but I have not gotten confirmation from Admin on how to do this.  Please let me know as I want to continue my contributions to this forum.

Thanks.

I am not familiar with that smoker but will try to help, have you calibrated your thermometers, how are you coming up with the temp readings.

How large were the chickens.

Were you cooking on the hot side or the cool side.

Have you looked into any mods such as a baffle for your smoker.

Something is definitely wrong if you had the chicken in the smoker for 4 hours and they only read 124 degrees.It wasn't a frozen chicken... was it???

First off it was in the danger zone too long.

My first suggestion would be accurate thermometers and a digital probe type thermometer placed inside the thigh of the chicken.

My second suggestion would be to do some mods after you have checked the charbroiler with good thermometers.

 

[vic81]

Hi guys,

Still haven't gotten a response for my 08/23/10 post.  I am wondering what I did wrong with my temps.

Also, I received an email from Meyer about how to post pics onto this forum, but I have not gotten confirmation from Admin on how to do this.  Please let me know as I want to continue my contributions to this forum.

Thanks.

Hey Bigrnm13 - I am new to this forum and just signed up late last week.  I have have had no issues uploading images.  Have you tried using the image button.  This one:

 

Or maybe it is the file size, what size are the photos you are trying to upload? I usually crop mine down to ~500 px wide or so and they end up being less than 100kb.  I noticed you said 'send attachments' - how are you trying to upload the photos?  Can you give some more details?

 

[walt408]

Hi guys,

Still haven't gotten a response for my 08/23/10 post.  I am wondering what I did wrong with my temps.

Also, I received an email from Meyer about how to post pics onto this forum, but I have not gotten confirmation from Admin on how to do this.  Please let me know as I want to continue my contributions to this forum.

Thanks.

Hi,

I'm still fairly new to smoking (about 5 months) and it appears you have about 4 questions. I believe questions can get lost in a long thread; I have had good results in asking one specific question in a thread.

1. Temps in your Charbroiler offset: I have a WSM; suggest you ask the question in a new thread in the "charcoal smoker" area of the forum.

2. Chicken not reaching proper temp: I'm not sure. Were your thermometers accurate? Was the chicken totally defrosted? You may need a new thread in the "poultry" area.

3. Brining the chicken: I bought a plastice utility bucket with a lid at Lowes for less than $5. I washed it very well, and only use it for brining. When brining the chicken or turkey, I first place it in the refrigerator to chill the brine, then add the chicken and put it back into the refrigerator. I have an old refrig in the garage that I mainly use for drinks. I remove a shelf to make room for the bucket.

4. Posting pictures: I use the PICTURE icon on the REPLY screen and follow the steps. If you still have problems, you may want to ask in a new thread in the "for new members" area.

Walt

 

[jirodriguez]

On your smoker, do you have a hanging charcoal basket or are you just building a fire in the bottom of the firebox? If you are just building the fire in the bottom of the firebox your charcoal is smothering itself with its own ash. If you look around at the mods people make to Char-griller and Char-broil smokers you will find lots of various ideas for a charcoal basket that raises the bottom of the charcoal about 3or 4 inches off of the bottom of the firebox. This creates a place for the ash to fall out of the charcoal and not smother it.

The other mods you want are to extend your smoke stack down to grate level, put 2 therms in the lid one on the left side one on the right side, and create some sort of tuning plate and/or baffle to eaven out your temps from firebox side to non-firebox side.

Now for brining I have got the same space problem you do and have a great solution for that. I buy these Ziploc 3 and 5 gallon bags at a local storage container store. Put your meat and the brine into the bag, zip it shut, put the bag(s) into a large insulated beer cooler, then dump a big bag or two of ice in to fill up the rest of the space. Since the brine is seperated from the ice it doesn't get diluted, and it will stay nice and cold all night long. I usually just leave mine in the garage overnight till I am ready to smoke the next day. Here is a link from my last turkey breast brine showing the bags http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/fo...rined-chicken-and-herbed-brined-turkey-breast

 

[bigrnm13]

Thanks Vic81, I am going to try it now.

Let me know if you receive them please

 

 

[bigrnm13]

I tried posting my images like Vic81 suggested.  don't know if you guys received them.  I don't see them here.  I will try again.

 

[bigrnm13]

Hi SQWIB,

Thanks for the response. 

the termometer I used I had just purchased at Lowe's, it was brand new.  I didn't realize I had to calibrate it.  How do you calibrate them?

The chicken was not frozen, and I did sort of put it in the middle of the smoker.  I'm wondering if the water pan was too close to the firebox?  When you guys receive the pics, if I did it correctly, you will see where the chicken is.

I need to leave now, but will get back to all of you tomorrow.

Thanks for all the responses,

TTYL,

 

[vic81]

Hey Bigrnm13 - I can see the pics in both your posts - nicely done!!

 

[cptorrez]

Well i just ate my bird! God it was awesome!!! i brined it for 24hrs and used weber cickin chicken rub. smoked with hickory and mesquite. here is a couple pics. 

 

[alelover]

Put the thermo in boiling water and see if it reads 212 F. Your boiling point may differ depending on altitude. See chart below for the pressure in your neighborhood.

[size=-1]To calculate the boiling point of water at a location on any specific day use the following equation:[/size]

[size=-1]Boiling point of water = Boiling point at specified altitude (Table 1) ± boiling point barometric correction (Table 2).[/size]​

[size=-1]In the tables, the following equations have been used:[/size]

[size=-1]Pressure (in. Hg) = 29.921* (1-6.8753*0.000001 * altitude, ft.)^5.2559[/size]​

[size=-1]Boiling point = 49.161 * Ln (in. Hg) + 44.932[/size]​

 ​

[size=-1]TABLE[/size]  [size=-1] 1[/size]​	[size=-2]Changes in Standard Temperature and Pressure (in Hg) as a Function of Altitude[/size]​	​ [size=-1]  (Ref. 1)[/size]​		[size=-1]TABLE[/size]  [size=-1] 2[/size]​	​ [size=-2]Boiling Point as a Function of [/size]​ [size=-2]Barometric Pressure[/size]​	​ [size=-1]  (Ref. 2)[/size]​
[size=-1]Altitude (ft.)[/size]​	[size=-1]Pressure[/size]​ [size=-1](in. Hg)[/size]​	[size=-1]Boiling pt.[/size]​ [size=-1](° F)[/size]​	[size=-1]  [/size]​	[size=-1]Pressure[/size]​ [size=-1](in. Hg)[/size]​	[size=-1]Boiling pt. [/size]​ [size=-1](° F)[/size]​	[size=-1]Boiling pt.[/size]​ [size=-1][added or reduced][/size]​ [size=-1](° F)[/size]​
[size=-1]-500[/size]​	[size=-1]30.466[/size]​	[size=-1]212.9[/size]​	​	[size=-1]27.6[/size]​	[size=-1]208.04[/size]​	[size=-1]-3.96[/size]​
[size=-1]0[/size]​	[size=-1]29.921[/size]​	[size=-1]212.0[/size]​	​	[size=-1]27.8[/size]​	[size=-1]208.39[/size]​	[size=-1]-3.61[/size]​
[size=-1]500[/size]​	[size=-1]29.384[/size]​	[size=-1]211.1[/size]​	​	[size=-1]28.0[/size]​	[size=-1]208.75[/size]​	[size=-1]-3.25[/size]​
[size=-1]1000[/size]​	[size=-1]28.855[/size]​	[size=-1]210.2[/size]​	​	[size=-1]28.2[/size]​	[size=-1]209.10[/size]​	[size=-1]-2.90[/size]​
[size=-1]2000[/size]​	[size=-1]27.821[/size]​	[size=-1]208.4[/size]​	​	[size=-1]28.4[/size]​	[size=-1]209.44[/size]​	[size=-1]-2.56[/size]​
[size=-1]2500[/size]​	[size=-1]27.315[/size]​	[size=-1]207.5[/size]​	​	[size=-1]28.6[/size]​	[size=-1]209.79[/size]​	[size=-1]-2.21[/size]​
[size=-1]3000[/size]​	[size=-1]26.817[/size]​	[size=-1]206.6[/size]​	​	[size=-1]28.8[/size]​	[size=-1]210.13[/size]​	[size=-1]-1.87[/size]​
[size=-1]3500[/size]​	[size=-1]26.326[/size]​	[size=-1]205.7[/size]​	​	[size=-1]29.0[/size]​	[size=-1]210.47[/size]​	[size=-1]-1.53[/size]​
[size=-1]4000[/size]​	[size=-1]25.842[/size]​	[size=-1]204.8[/size]​	​	[size=-1]29.2[/size]​	[size=-1]210.81[/size]​	[size=-1]-1.19[/size]​
[size=-1]4500[/size]​	[size=-1]25.365[/size]​	[size=-1]203.9[/size]​	​	[size=-1]29.4[/size]​	[size=-1]211.15[/size]​	[size=-1]-0.85[/size]​
[size=-1]5000[/size]​	[size=-1]24.896[/size]​	[size=-1]203.0[/size]​	​	[size=-1]29.6[/size]​	[size=-1]211.48[/size]​	[size=-1]-0.52[/size]​
[size=-1]5500[/size]​	[size=-1]24.434[/size]​	[size=-1]202.0[/size]​	​	[size=-1]29.8[/size]​	[size=-1]211.81[/size]​	[size=-1]-0.19[/size]​
[size=-1]6000[/size]​	[size=-1]23.978[/size]​	[size=-1]201.1[/size]​	​	[size=-1]29.921[/size]​	[size=-1]212.00[/size]​	[size=-1]0.00[/size]​
[size=-1]6500[/size]​	[size=-1]23.530[/size]​	[size=-1]200.2[/size]​	​	[size=-1]30.0[/size]​	[size=-1]212.14[/size]​	[size=-1]0.14[/size]​
[size=-1]7000[/size]​	[size=-1]23.088[/size]​	[size=-1]199.3[/size]​	​	[size=-1]30.2[/size]​	[size=-1]212.46[/size]​	[size=-1]0.46[/size]​
[size=-1]7500[/size]​	[size=-1]22.653[/size]​	[size=-1]198.3[/size]​	​	[size=-1]30.4[/size]​	[size=-1]212.79[/size]​	[size=-1]0.79[/size]​
[size=-1]8000[/size]​	[size=-1]22.225[/size]​	[size=-1]197.4[/size]​	​	[size=-1]30.6[/size]​	[size=-1]213.11[/size]​	[size=-1]1.11[/size]​
[size=-1]8500[/size]​	[size=-1]21.803[/size]​	[size=-1]196.4[/size]​	​	[size=-1]30.8[/size]​	[size=-1]213.43[/size]​	[size=-1]1.43[/size]​
[size=-1]9000[/size]​	[size=-1]21.388[/size]​	[size=-1]195.5[/size]​	​	[size=-1]31.0[/size]​	[size=-1]213.75[/size]​	[size=-1]1.75[/size]​
[size=-1]9500[/size]​	[size=-1]20.979[/size]​	[size=-1]194.6[/size]​	​	[size=-1]31.2[/size]​	[size=-1]214.07[/size]​	[size=-1]2.07[/size]​
[size=-1]10000[/size]​	[size=-1]20.577[/size]​	[size=-1]193.6[/size]​	​	[size=-1]31.4[/size]​	[size=-1]214.38[/size]​	[size=-1]2.38[/size]​