BBQ Roast Chicken

Here we are – Memorial Day 2010 and our first blog entry.  We’ve been cooking a lot this weekend (and it’s not over yet, dinner is yet to come).  We love BBQ; and by BBQ we mean BBQ sauce!  “Barbecuing” is often used as a verb to describe “grilling”.  As in “we are barbecuing this weekend.  Come over for a hamburger or hotdog.”  In our house BBQ/barbecue means BBQ sauce over some sort of meat, fish or veggie (yes, I said fish and veggie in that sentence).

I’ve never roasted a whole chicken before because the idea of it has intimidated me.  So far the many years that I’ve heard of beer can chicken I’ve been too afraid to try it.  That fear ended this weekend.

Now, normally I get my recipes from a book or blog but for this one I winged it.  As I said in the “Why the Blog” section, we are adapters.  We are inspired by others and while we do cook our fair share of recipes almost exactly as stated we often get inspired and go in our own direction.  This is one of those times.

We picked up a 4 lb whole chicken from one of the vendors in Eastern Market.  I told him I wanted one of his smaller roasters and this is what he gave me.  It cost $7.

Ingredients:

Marinade (to be injected):
Makers Mark bourbon
balsamic vinaigrette
orange juice

4 lb roaster chicken (do what you will with the “innards” of the chicken.  We don’t need ’em.  Mine came without them.  Yea!)
extra virgin olive oil (EVOO).  You might be better off using plain ‘ol olive oil; it has a higher smoke point.
BBQ spice rub
12 oz. can of beer (I used 21st Amendment Brewery’s Hell or High Watermelon )

Rinse the chicken and pat it dry.  Easy, right?

I did a 1-1-1 mixture for the marinade.  First, I smelled and tasted the Makers Mark.  Half an hour later I got back to where I needed to be….  Ok, I mixed about 1.5 oz bourbon, vinegar and OJ.  I mixed these together and then using my marinade injector I injected the concoction into the breast, thighs and any other place I could find meat on the bird.  I had some left over so I poured it into the cavity.

Next I rubbed the bird with a light coating of EVOO.  I then rubbed it with my homemade BBQ Dry Rub, which is inspired and almost identical to the dry rub in the Dinosaur BBQ recipe book (ingredients coming soon to this blog).   I suppose any decent dry rub will do.  I’ll be honest – I have only ever used my dry rub.

All rubbed up and nowhere to go!

I put the bird back in the fridge covered with saran wrap.  I like to let the rub have some time to let the flavor soak in.

When ready to grill, I turned my grill up to high on the two outside burners.  I left the two middle burners off and placed an aluminum foil drip pan under the grate.  This will serve to help stop flare ups.

I drank about 2 oz. of the beer, put a couple more holes in the top and then poured some of the dry rub into the can.  Note: the beer may react to the rub and bubble up; just a heads up.  I then, ummmm, put the can inside the cavity of the bird (ok, I felt like I was violating the bird).  Obviously you want to keep the can and bird upright once you’ve done this.  You don’t want the beer spilling.

Brewed with real watermelon. No joke.

I placed the whole thing upright on the middle grill grate, over the pan.  The can served as one of the tripod legs; the bird’s legs served as the other two.  I tucked the wings under themselves so that they wouldn’t dry out or burn.

It looks like a little person.

I opened the grill and checked the progress more times than I would have liked but I wanted to make sure dinner wasn’t burning.  I did have to drop the temperature in the grill about halfway through because the back of the bird was cooking a lot faster than the breast.

Be careful when you are taking the bird off the grill.  You don’t want hot beer burning you.  I used one pair of tongs to hold the bird up and another pair to remove the can.  I then left the can on the grill to cool down.

Let the bird sit for a few minutes before carving.  Trust me, it won’t get cold.  Carve, eat, enjoy, eat leftovers the next day.

Total cooking time: 1 hr 2o min.  Serves 4.

I ripped part of the skin while using the tongs to remove the beer can. Oops!

Lessons learned:

1. The chicken was incredibly moist yet their was absolutely no bourbon or beer flavor left over.  This is a GOOD thing.  The wife hates both and couldn’t taste either flavor.   The chicken, however, was drunk as $%&#!!!
2. I didn’t add rub under the skin of the chicken.  I’ve noticed that many recipes suggest doing this.  I didn’t miss it in the end.
3. Make sure your chicken can stand up without touching the grill cover while the grill is closed.  I had enough clearance but just barely.  If the bird was a few pounds bigger I don’t think this would have worked.

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