what? so, I'm demoted to being the Chicken advice line? damn...hehe well, anyhow, use only a full bird. don't smoke pieces, that's for grilling. I always brine chicken (smoking, fried, roasted...doesn't matter). Not quite sure how to 'splain my smoke/brine method, because I brine it with an Arbol and Chipotle sauce that I make a couple times a year...I showed you those, right? What you should do is just buy Joy of Cooking and brine the chicken as explained in the Fried Chicken recipe...and add smoke spices into the brine as you choose...probably just adding Behad's rib-rub recipe would kick ass. Note that the heat of the spices in the brine is not a worry as it can be with a rub...spices in a brine have minimal impact compared to a Rib rub. lastly, cook that chicken slow as you would any other smoked meat. imo, if you don't do it slow, you are wasting the chicken and are better off just roasting or grilling it... lastly, if someone tells you to stick a Foster's can up the chicken's butt...don't listen to them.
also...if this isn't obvious...you want to smoke it with the skin on...(it has the fat). So, remember to penetrate the brine underneath the skin. All you do is use a finger to wiggle between the skin and the breast/thighs. Then scoop your spicey brine into them. You only need to do this with the breast and thighs...screw the rest, just use the other pieces for quesadillas. Make sure you submerge the chicken in the brine...otherwise, your refrigerator will dry out the exposed part. I just place a plate on it.
So my ribs yesterday were a success, some pics when i get home tonight. mmmm ribs for lunch today!!!!! Behad - one question, my wood chips seemed to be catching on fire way too quickly yesterday, any advice?? HeyP - will see if i can find that book or maybe some online recipes
Soak them in water for about 30 minutes prior to placing on the fire. Congrats! Did ya get the spices right?
yeah soaked them for a couple of hours, weird, last week they were great. yeah added a little more brown sugar to my rub mix which helped and also put less on, also used honey with BBQ sauce, to wipe the dust off at the end, all in all they were probably cooking for at least 4hrs, although the last hours the heat had dropped a fair bit (was waiting for Mrs Smeg to get home), some parts of the outside were a bit crispy but the meat was falling apart and fell off the bone. next challenge????
Brisket, of course! In your honor, I cleaned up the Weber and fired it up today. Got some steaks grilling on it now.
with the coals used in the Weber, how long (hrs) do you think they are good for, i mean with a brisket, i would suspect i will have re-stoke several times. ok now starting at square 1 with a brisket, what kind of meat and part of meat is it??? certainly want to do a brisket just don't have enough time on the weekends at the moment, might just go with a lamb roast of something next weekend.
definitely have to add some preflamed briquets when the first pile is starting to ashh over to much..dont know how to 'splain it..maybe Behad can .. When I smoked a turkey on my watersmoker, I had to add more briquets twice in a 12 hr span. One ppiece of advice on the wood chunks...I soke them overnight..and add them around the edges of the coals.. your mileage may vary
Yum!... looks pretty good Smeggy! Are you using one of these famous german "Smeg" kitchen appliances for cooking? I bet you do!
Excellent! You have learned well, grasshopper! (Did it strike anyone else as funny that someone is taking pictures of their food to show other people on an internet bbs?)
Hey Behad....I fired up the New Braufels smoker yesterday. Got a 15 lb bag of Pecan chunks from Academy for $3.49. Did up two racks of beef ribs, chicken and sausage, and had a couple of buddies over. Came out great, and my friends demolished the stuff...no leftovers! Not even any leftover beer!!
Pecan wood...there is no substitute. I'm doing three briskets on Thursday for the party Friday night.
