One of my all time favorite things to do is smoke meat! This past year I got an electric smoker and it was the best purchase to date. The process of slowly cooking meat not only adds great flavors from hickory, apple, pare, and others, to making the most moist, fall of the bone meat you have ever had.

Although it does take hours to smoke meat, it is well worth it especially for trickier meats such as a whole chicken that easily dries out, a chuck roast, or a pork butt (pork shoulder). But with a smoker and careful temperature monitoring it is almost impossible to not make delicious meat every time.

Last night I smoked a whole chicken for the first time, and it is definitely my new go to for chicken. Typically I cook it in the slow cooker crock pot and finish it in the oven, but with the crock pot it is hard to guess timing and doneness. But with the smoker it cooks so slowly that it is easy to take out right when its done at 165 degrees.

I chose to brine my chicken before putting it into my smoker. This is the process where you let your chicken soak in water and 1 cup sea salt. This locks in a lot of moisture before cooking it, but it also makes the skin less crispy at the end, so you have to decide which is more important to you. I also chose to spatchcock my chicken before going into the smoker, instead of putting it in as is. This is also known as “butterflying” and is where you take out the spine with kitchen scissors and break the rib cage so it will lie flat (see below how it lies flat). This allows the chicken to cook more evenly and also much faster, which speeds up the time of smoking by a great deal.

Lastly, I chose to use hickory wood chips to smoke this chicken because I thought it would pair well with the more rustic bbq rub I placed on the chicken. It was a delicious combo that definitely didn’t disappoint. If you have 3-4 hours to dedicate to this lovely bird smoking is the way to go!

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients for the Chicken:

  1. One whole 3-5 lb organic pasture raised chicken
  2. 1 cup sea salt (if you are brining)

Ingredients for the Rub:

  1. 1 T salt (if you aren’t brining, if brined don’t add salt)
  2. 1 T garlic powder
  3.  1/2 T ground pepper
  4. 1/2 T onion powder
  5. 1 T smoked paprika
  6. 2 teaspoons cayenne
  7. 1/2 T chili powder

Instructions:

  1. If brining, put chicken in large put of cool water and mix in 1 cup of kosher sea salt. You will want to put the chicken in the brine for 3-24 hours for optimal moisture.
  2.  Prepare the smoker and soak wood chips, you will want to smoke your chips for 10 minutes to 2 hours. You will want your smoker to be brought up to 225 degrees. Also at this time you should mix your rub together.
  3.  Pat dry and then spatchcock (butterfly) the chicken right before you want to put it in the smoker. This takes around 10 minutes to do.
  4.  Once spatchcocked, rub the rub all over the chicken, you want to make a nice layer, but not too thick, like the picture above. You will most likely have extra rub so store and keep for your next chicken or meat.
  5.  Place the chicken flat into the smoker, making sure the smoker is at 225 degrees. Depending on the size of the chicken, your chicken should cook 30ish minutes for every pound. I had a 5 pound chicken and it took around an hour and a half.
  6. After 45 minutes check on your chips to see if they need replacement, if they are no longer smoking, add more.
  7.  Monitor your chicken temperature at the breast every half hour or so, you will want to take it out when your thermometer reads 165 degrees, no more, because nobody likes dry chicken! (I highly recommend a good thermometer for correct readings, here is the one I use http://www.thermoworks.com/Classic-Thermapen ).
  8. Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes, carve, serve and enjoy!.
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