Mesquite Smoked Chicken

Last weekend Farmerboy smoked a chicken for Sunday dinner.  Once you get the hang of smoking meat, it is fairly easy. Though smoking a chunk of meat doesn't make for a quick and easy meal, it typically takes between 6-8 hours to smoke a 6 or 7 pound chicken.

This is our smoker, it is electric...boogie, woogie, woogie

Much like pre-heating your oven, you want to get your smoker to 200°.  Add hot water to the water pan (seen above) and load the flavor chips (below) - our favorites are hickory and mesquite. We used mesquite for this recipe.

Adding the wood chips to the smoker. 

Once you prep the smoker, then you can prep the bird. We use a pretty simple method of just butter and a spice rub in addition to the mesquite chips.



Rub Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon of the following:
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Black Pepper
Paprika
Cayenne Pepper
Chili Powder

1 cup of sugar

Prepping the chicken:

First, you have to pull the skin back from the meat. This is where you are going to add the butter and spices, and what will give the meat its flavor.

Then you place the butter under the skin.  Farmerboy used a ¼ of butter, cut into quarters. He placed one quarter on each breast, and two in the cavity.

Then he added the spice rub to the bird. As you can see, we mix it in a mason jar for easy application.

Now the waiting game begins. 

You want to add more chips to the hopper every 1 -1 ½ hours. The idea is to make them smolder for the smoke, not burn. Also, there is no need to wet them. 

Just like putting something in the oven, try not to open the smoker, the more you open it, the more heat is lost.

Normally, Farmerboy keeps his electric thermometer placed in the thigh of the chicken so that he can easily see what the temp is without opening the door. He couldn't find it (it was in the grass near the house, the dog must have gotten it) so he had to open the door.

Finally about 6 hours later the chicken reached an internal temperature of 165°. 

Doesn't this look amazing? Check back for pointers on how to carve, and a potpie recipe.

Plated, and ready to eat.

As always.

Bon Appetite!