My first Weber Smokey Mountian session (part 2)
As we saw in Part One… so far the first Weber Smokey Mountain smoke has been pretty uneventful. Camden took charge. The fire got built and the chicken went on with a few brats. After the first 90 minutes, the lid came off with no great billow of smoke. Oh well, that would have made for a great photo.
So off came the brats, after first tasting one to see how it did. Wow! That was a great tasting bratwurst. I gotta admit that I didn’t expect some so tasty right off the bat. I had prepared a simple Oil to brush on the skin after the first ninety minutes. Just a 1/4 cup of good quality Olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic and generous salt and pepper. I brushed the chicken skin and turned the bird over. The lid went back on. This was about the time that I began to worry. Was the chicken drying out. It was important to get the first smoke right so the Commander would have a little faith in trying more exotic BBQ dishes in the future.
After another 15 minutes, the chicken came off. That may have been premature – although I don’t know that it wasn’t either. I think I was nervous about over cooking the chicken and having it dry out on me. So after 15 minutes skin side down – I removed the chicken and let it rest for a good 10 minutes. This is the mistake I think I made. Leaving the chicken on longer may have been good for getting the skin crisper. That was one comment the Commander made. But she also thought it may have been due in part to using a frozen chicken of questionable age. I finished up the chicken with some Stubb’s Hickory Bourbon sauce served on side. I didn’t want to drown the chicken in sauce.
Overall – extremely pleased with the Weber Smokey Mountain. I’m going to love doing 6-7 chickens this way. Probably increase the overall initial time to 120 minutes due to all that chicken. It would be much easier to wait the full thirty minutes for the skin to crisp up. I also decided to smoke four more Brats for another full 90 minutes. The WSM was still going strong with the original single lump charcoal load. For a fair portion of the second Bratwurst-only smoke… the temperature was much higher after the addition on just a single piece of Hickory chunk.
I ended up smoking another chicken the following Monday night. In the rain. Hardcore. UGH! For the first smoke – I ended up using 7 pounds of Royal Oak lump charcoal. I used less charcoal the second time (and more wood chunk) and the temperature was somewhat lower. That fact coupled with the rainy, damp conditions – I left the second attempt on for 115 minutes then another 15 minutes with the skin oiled and the chicken flipped over. Skin down. I’ll move on to a brined chicken soon enough but
Not a bad first try. Chicken looked good. |
Ended up finishing my chicken with a little Stubbs. |
All in all – not too shabby. But there is a lot left to learn. |
The one thing I surely need to work on is my ability to break down a chicken without the absolute mangle! The second attempt was a complete disaster.
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