Hello all. I tried a little experiment with the smoker and wood. I bought four whole chickens that were frozen a few weeks ago for $.59 a pound. I treated them all the same and smoked them all with different woods to get a handle on which I like better. Here are my notes.
Tuesday I put two birds in the fridge to thaw so I could smoke on Wednesday.
Made up four gallons of a basic brine so each bird will get the same swim.
Wednesday I pulled one bird from the fridge and washed, brined for 2 hours and rubbed with 1/4 cup of SPOG.
Chicken #1 was 5.99LB and box temp was 97*
Smokinlicious Sugar Maple 4.2oz split to 5 slivers and into the smoker at 250* until it hit 165* in the breast. It took 3 hours.
Opened up the smoker to get the bird and let it cool off for the second run. Bird had a dark color and smelled great.
Chicken #2 was 6.23LB and brined for 2 hours, rubbed with 1/4 cup rub
Maine Grilling Wood apple 4.4oz split into 6 slivers. Box temp was 121* and took 2.7 hours.
Through for the day. Grabbed other birds and put them in the fridge to thaw overnight.
Thursday I grabbed Chicken #3 from the fridge and it was still mostly frozen but rinsed and brined for 2 hours. After swim, it was still slightly frozen but rubbed with 1/4 cup rub and into the smoker with Smokinlicious Cherry 4.2oz cut into 6 slivers. Probed and with a box temp of 95*, the bird was only 29* but fired up the smoker anyway. This one took 4.4 hours.
Chicken #4 was 6.28LB, rubbed with 1/4 cup rub and into the box with a temp of 127* Smokinlicious Hickory 4.0oz split into 5 pieces this one took 3.1 hours.
All four chickens were placed into a gallon zip lock bag with the type of wood used.
Friday evening we had 7 guests coming for supper. I deboned each chicken and set two on a cookie sheet with 1 toothpick in pile #1, 2 toothpicks in #2 and so on. Two large cookie sheets with two big piles of chicken meat each and added 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar for a bit of moister covered in foil and slid the cookie sheets into the smoker about an hour before supper time and turned it to 195* for about 20 minuted then 275* until it was time to eat.
I had each person take some chicken from each pile and give me feedback
on which one they liked the best with "no wrong answers".
Results, the Sugar Maple was the favorite followed by Apple. Most did not care for the Hickory but did not hate it.
I had a lot of fun doing this and now have a lot of chicken to cube up and freeze. One dish of King Ranch Chicken is already planned.
