McNelis.biz

So I’m on the verge of screwing up the month-o-blogging on the first Saturday I faced. But fear not, I have something that may even be interesting to check out.

Today we made Beer Can Chicken, for the second time. Beer can chicken is when you essentially stick a can of beer up a chickens pooper and hope for the best. Ok, so its a little more complicated than that….but not really.

First, start with a whole chicken…a fryer is probably your best bet. You definitely want a whole chicken, with the neck, gizzards, ect., tossed out. Then you are going to brine the chicken in a solution of salt and sugar.

Start by taking a 1/2 cup of salt and 1/2 cup of sugar and mixing it with two quarts of cool water. Mix it up as best you can and submerge the chicken. Personally I use a large pot with a lid and depending on the size of the chicken…today’s was f-in huge…I will put it in the fridge for 1 to 2 hours. Because sometimes you can’t quite submerge the whole chicken you might flip it halfway through.

After its brined we seasoned it, inside and out, with Penzey’s 4-S seasoned salt (which includes a smoky component), hot smoked paprika, basil, fresh ground pepper, and garlic powder. Pretty much just coat the chicken…your favorite BBQ rub will cut it just the same.

At the tail end of the brining you’ll want to set your grill up to do some indirect cooking as well as soaking some wood chunks (we used Mesquite) in water. Then you violate the dead chicken with a beer can. A hint, empty the beer can about a third and punch a couple of extra holes in the top of the can.

You actually won’t want to stick the beer in until you are putting the chicken on the grill. Then you’ll set the legs up like a tripod…it will look like this when you put it on the grill.

and

Want to see the fire?

Or the whole grill?

And this is just cool smoke coming out of the chimney:

Here are a few shots of the chicken when its about to come off the grill…

Then its time to cut the heck out of that chicken…

Here are some shots of the end product….

So what do you guys think? It has consistently been a fantastic tasting and moist bird, even though the skin is sometimes a bit on the tough side….this time I did drizzle with a little olive oil that helped crisp up the skin a bit.

Happy drooling!