Smoked Whole Chicken
Smoked Whole Chicken
Serves 4 For Chicken Plates, Or 8 For Pulled Chicken Sandwiches
This is the best recipe for a beginner, the perfect place to get you started on your journey to becoming a pitmaster. The nicest part about it is that once you’ve got it mastered, you end up with something pretty damn impressive to serve your friends and family in the backyard—they don’t need to know how easy it is to get this right. That said, there is one crucial thing you need to remember here:
Chickens like to dry out on the smoker, mostly because compared with pork shoulders, briskets, and ribs they just don’t have a lot of fat on them. My chickens never dry out because I put a pan of apple juice underneath them in the smoker, which ensures that the chicken is bathed in moisture and sweetness for the duration of its cook time. (Note: This is not a recipe that’s going to give you seared crunchy skin; the point of smoking a chicken is to produce meat so soft to bite through, you don’t even need a knife to cut it.)
Ingrediënten
- 1 3½- to 4-pound large whole chicken
- 4 cups Smoked Stock this page or good-quality store-bought stock
- 2 cups Jack’s Old South Huney Muney Cluck Rub or make your own
- 2 cups apple juice
Instructies
- Place the chicken in a deep baking pan, pour over the stock, and marinate, covered, in the refrigerator for at least three hours, or preferably overnight.
- When are you ready to cook the chicken, preheat a smoker to 250°F.
- Remove the pan from the refrigerator and pour out the stock.
- Pat the chicken dry all over with paper towels or a clean kitchen towel.
- Apply the rub liberally to the chicken, making sure to get it all over the bird.
- Place the chicken breast side up on a meat rack with the handles facing down, so the bird will be raised above the surface of the pans.
- Set the rack inside a deep aluminum pan.
- Pour the apple juice into the bottom of the pan, underneath the meat rack.
- Place the pan in the smoker and cook for 1½ hours.
- Pull the pan from the smoker.
- Using a sharp knife, cut off the wings of the bird (see this page for instructions on how to do that).
- Wrap the wings in aluminum foil and keep them warm in an oven on the lowest setting.
- Meanwhile, return the rest of the chicken to the smoker and cook for an additional 1½ hours, or until the internal temperature of the white meat reaches 165°F and the dark meat reaches 180°F.
- Remove the chicken from the smoker and allow it to rest just as it is, on the rack in its pan and uncovered, for 15 minutes.
- To serve, carve the chicken into individual pieces.
Notes / Tips / Wine Advice:
If you like to make pulled chicken to eat on its own or for pulled chicken sandwiches: Put on a pair of food-handling gloves. Over a cutting board, pull the chicken apart at the breastbone, applying firm pressure with your thumbs on either side of the bone while gently using the rest of your fingers to separate the breasts from the bone. Then pull the chicken meat from the bones and transfer to a platter. I like to make pulled chicken sandwiches by spreading both sides of a soft roll with barbecue sauce and then serving and eating those suckers immediately.
