Smoked Beer Can Chicken

[skalls]

After playing a game last night that involved making my kidneys and liver hate me I needed to make some real food and eat something good for me.  Chicken it is.  And if i'm going to eat chicken I'm going to smoke a whole chicken.

Smoking a whole chicken is pretty much the easiest thing to smoke in my opinion.  It's virtually impossible to screw it up.

So what's a beer can chicken for the uninitiated? Basically you shove a can of beer up the opening of a chicken and then put said chicken on the grill.  Does it work?  Yes but it's subtle.  In my experience each of the beer can chickens have been slightly more moist than the non-beer can ones I've smoked.  You don't have to do this in order to smoke a chicken.  But since I have this handy ceramix beer can chicken holder I may as well use it as often as I can.

So I selected a 6 pound bird.  I wanted a big one because I not only am I a huge fan of leftovers but I also wanted to have lunch meat for the next three days.  Another thing with chicken is since it's so cheap, if you do screw it up, your not out much money at all.  Not so with brisket lol.

A whole bunch of paper towels later I've managed to dry up the chicken.  The bird felt thawed but there were surprise ice chunks all over the inside of it that took a while to clean that off.

Next up is to fill the beer can holder with beer (a 2 week old, slightly stale Summer Shandy).  Don't use good beer here.  Bad pisswater (bud, bud light, miller light) works plenty well here.  Now you can add some herbs and whatnoit to the beer for some additional flavors but I've never done that.

Then I lather the chicken up with some olive oil and hit it with my spice ribe.

1. Black Pepper
2. Kosher Salt
3. Cayenne Peppr
4. Paprika
5. Garlic Poweder
6. Onion Powder

3 through 6 are small amounts.  Pepper and Salt make up 90% of my rub.  I don a latex glove so I don't have to wash oily hands

And then I shove the bird on the beer can holder.

And off to the grill.  I want 275 at the grates.  Once the breast hits 165 the thighs should be 175.  I will not pull the chicken until both of those temps are achieved.  I have a drip pan below to lessen the mess and helps to absorp some of the heat coming off the grill.  I'm using cherry wood.  I love love love cherry wood and how well it pairs with poultry.  I'm looking for a 3-4 hour smoke.

I put the chicken on the grill when it hits 225.

At 1 hour.  Temp never got to 275,.  Did maintain 245-250 which is good enough.

At 3:15.  Temp did creep up to 265 for the last 45 minutes of the cook.  My wireless thermometer went off when the breast hit 165 degrees.  Probed the other one and both thighs.  Bang on with the temps.  She's done.

Off the grill and into a tray with foil over it.  Placed in the oven set to warm for 50 minutes.  You need to let it rest otherwise all the juices will run out of the meat and your left with dried out chicken.  That is not good eats.  While I wait for it to rest I started some rice in the rice cooker.  When that is done I should be ready to tear this chicken apart.

Now one thing I should point out.  I don't try to crisp the chicken up.  My friends swear by tossing it on a gas grill at 400 degrees for 10 minutes and it does the trick.  As it stands the skin is rubbery and not edible, so I just pull it off and don't eat it.

Then it's time to tear this chicken apart to get to the tasty bits!  So here's the results and the waste.