Now That's A Fire!!!!

Friday morning I got up about 7 a.m. and pulled the smaller of the two chickens from the brine and set it in a pan to examine it. I had read several posts on smoking websites etc. that warned not to overbrine chicken. The smaller chicken was soft and very pliable so I pulled them both, covered them and put them back into the fridge. I still needed wood, so I headed up to Berry Bros Firewood Co. and purchased a bag of oak and a bag of well-seasoned mesquite. They have nice size bags there for 15 bucks a bag, so I should be good for a while.

I came home and got everything together and started the charcoal chimney on the ground in the backyard. The charcoal chimney can eat the surface right off concrete, so I'd recommend finding a nice patch of dirt away from anything flammable and get it going there. While that was going I pulled the chickens from the fridge and rubbed them down in oil and fresh ground pepper. Right about that time Jason called me and asked how it was going. I rubbed it in a bit that I was smoking and drinking beer instead of working. He took that in good stride and gave me some well used advice on the dampening of the smokestack and firebox inlet. It probably took about 20 minutes for the charcoal to get to the point where the briquettes on top were showing gray. I transferred them to the firebox and put on a nice size chunk of oak to start. It doesn't take long at all for the temperature on the smoker to get up to where you want it. I am focusing on keeping mine between 220 and 260 degrees Fahrenheit.




With the smoker and the chickens ready there was nothing left to do but put them on. I placed them on the far left side of the smoker away from the firebox inlet after talking to Jason about placement. He also advised that a water pan was probably not necessary as he had yet to get a dry piece of meat and he wasn't using one. For those of you who aren't familiar with smoking, a smoker uses indirect heating and placing the meat on the side of the smoker closest to the firebox can result in the meat being exposed to higher heat as well as some flames. For more in-depth information on indirect cooking check out this article from the The DIY Network



The next 4 hours were pretty uneventful. I just checked on the smoker about every 15 to 20 minutes or so. Sometimes I stayed out and dealt with a temperature spike, but for the most part it does its thing and can be left alone. After the first hour I gave in to my temptation to open the smoker and take a look, they were browning nicely and looked great.



During some of the downtime I made a mop for one of the chickens using some ingredients I had on hand. I applied this mop to the chicken during the last hour and a half of cooking, three times at thirty-minute intervals.

Stout Mop
• ½ can stout – drink the other half :)
• 1 tbsp. crushed garlic
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 tsp. sage
• 1 tsp. thyme
• a pinch of black pepper
• 1 tsp. olive oil
Combine all ingredients in saucepan and bring to a simmer for 15-20 minutes.



With an hour or so left I decided it was time to put on the corn and onions as well as the giblets for my grilling partner Indie - isn't he cute? He's never been so attached to me as he was today :)




Here's a picture of the grill right before I pulled everything off for serving.



After eating notes: the larger of the two chickens wasn't as juicy as the smaller, it certainly wasn't dry, but in comparison the smaller came out better. I'm pretty sure it was because the brining time was sufficient for the smaller bird, but the larger bird could have sat in it longer. Sometime during the approximately 6 hours that I was working on this I began to wonder if all of the work was worth it. It was! I can't wait until I get to do it again (and neither can my family).