Smoking Chicken

I don’t have a lot of time this week for writing blogs. I’m prepping for one of my annual events I have at home, Basketball, Bourbon and Barbecue. It is essentially a two day orgy of, you guessed, it, basketball, bourbon and barbecue, timed to coincide with the first two days of the NCAA College Basketball Tournament. I have people coming and going from my place over those two days and that means I have 6 meals to prepare for an unknown number of people. Yes, there is the real possibility that people get over-bourboned and that they spend the night, therefore I provide breakfast as well. So two lunches, two dinners, and two morning after breakfasts means lot of prep work needs to be done.

Here’s a rough listing of what’s being served:

So it seems I’ve given you some of my secrets but not all of them. Well, here are a couple of more little tidbits that I’m going to pass along. First, this is not Smoked Chicken al la Lukie. My friend Lucas is no slouch with the smoker and he has volunteered to bring provide the smoked chicken for Thursday. Still, I needed smoked chicken for the Brunswick Stew so I had to smoke up a bunch myself. With that thought in mind, it takes just as much energy and time to smoke one chicken as it does multiple ones, so I fill up the smoker with the birds, in my case four big roasters, about 6-7 lbs each.

First of all, while many BBQ aficionados will tell you so smoke the chicken with the skin on, I do not. Why? Because the skin can get very rubbery and provides a very unpleasant texture to the finished product. It is a bit of work to skin a chicken but very much worth it IMO. Don’t worry about getting all the skin off the wings, those little bastards can be tough and the tips are going to be thrown out anyway. Just uncovering the drumette portion is enough. Some people can crisp up the skin through the liberal application of garlic salt, but I much prefer to remove the skin. There is plenty of fat left over even with the skin gone. In fact, there should be so much fat left that you should carve off the huge chunks of ass fat while you’re at it.

In addition to skinning the birds, I also cut the backs out of them. This can be done with a sharp knife but I prefer to use a pair of kitchen shears. You can just cut right down each side of the back and pull that and the neck right off the bird. Throw the backs in the freezer for future stock making. Once the backs are removed,place the chicken on a cutting board breast side up, and press firmly on the center of the bird to flatten it. You’ll her bits of stuff cracking and breaking as you do this. By flattening the bird, you’ll get things at a more uniform height from teh heat source and promote even cooking of the bird.

The next step is to thoroughly coat the chicken with Magic Dust. Not just a light dusting either. From here on out, smoking a chicken is very much like smoking pork butt. You should keep the temperature in the smoker between 225 and 250 degrees Fahrenheit. It will take somewhere between 4 to 6 hours to smoke these birds. I do not baste my chickens as they smoke, there is enough fat left to keep the meat moist without it. The chickens are done when the internal temperature reaches 170 degrees Fahrenheit in the thigh.

Pull the birds from the smoker into a large roasting pan and cover with foil and let rest for about 10 minutes. The temp in the meat will continue to rise just a bit. Then, using your fingers, start pulling the meat from the bones. Go ahead and eat the wings while your here, I know that from smelling this for the past 4 hours you’re hungry and you’ve messed up your shirt with drool. Take the bones and throw them into a stock pot with an onion, a clove of garlic, a rib of celery and a couple of carrots. Cover them with water, boil down for at least four hours but eight is better. This stock will have a beautiful smoky flavor to it in addition to the chicken richness. I use this stock as the base for my Brunswick Stew.

Well, there you have it, my steps for smoking chicken. I’m off to fill out my brackets now and I’ve still got my Tennessee Whiskey and Carolina Mustard Barbecue Sauces to make. Good luck to everyone with the brackets and I’ll be with you next week.