There are more dignified ways to treat a corpse I'm sure...
... but this one works wonderfully.
I've never done Beer Can Chicken before, and by all accounts it is an easy and awesome way to do chicken. Turns out that was totally true.
Okay, so I got a can of beer and I drank it. Oops. So I took a bottle of beer and emptied half of it into my face and half of it into the empty can, once I'd taken the top of the can. Premo would probably have worked just fine, but I had an inkling that Firebrick would be kind of a good match for chicken. The only other cans I have in my house are cans of Irn Bru. I'm not sure the world is ready for Irn Bru Chicken. Also, they're pretty precious to me, so I'd have to be sure this worked before boiling half a can up a chicken's arse.
I made a mix of spices, mostly mixing together chicken rubs with Worcestershire sauce, salt and three minced cloves of garlic. I shoved about two thirds of it under the chicken skin, front and back, and then put the rest in the beer. Then I lowered the chicken down over the can, it fit easily, but wasn't likely to fall out. It stood up, remarkably, all by itself and stayed up fairly well.
You have to set the grill up with a metal pan underneath to catch the drippings and send them back into the atmosphere of the covered grill. The coals were spread around the pan as evenly as I could. The grill is actually the grill from my gas grill, since it is slightly smaller, it fit lower down into the grill and could be tilted slightly if the chicken was off balance. That meant the coals were very close to the grill, so this wasn't a good way to grill anything else.
I kept the coals at a medium heat (360f) for an hour and then added 16 fresh coals (that's them sitting on the grill, not where they ended up eventually) and kept the heat at about 350f for another hour. I thought keeping the coals at a level temperature was going to be harder than it was, but it was actually super easy with this grill. I'd do things a little differently next time, just for ease of use, but it stayed at a good temperature for two whole hours without too much work. The weather was nice, so I sat out and read in the hammock, keeping an eye on grill.
At the end of the two hours I put the meat thermometer into the thigh and it read about 190f, 10 degrees over what it needed to be. Still it didn't look dried out, so I was hopeful it would still be fine. The only tricky bit is getting the beer can back out - that's easier with two people and Carol helped lift it while I pulled the can out with a silicon heat glove.
The chicken was really moist, without being undercooked at all. It fell apart very easily and the limbs came off with minimal effort. The flavour of the spices was mild and subtle, but pervasive. The skin was crispy and not too fatty anymore. I was impressed by how well this worked out; bummer that I couldn't really cook anything along with it, but still, this is a pretty great grill trick.
Ate it with grilled parsnips, garlic bread and a spinach salad. Nice!
I've never done Beer Can Chicken before, and by all accounts it is an easy and awesome way to do chicken. Turns out that was totally true.
Okay, so I got a can of beer and I drank it. Oops. So I took a bottle of beer and emptied half of it into my face and half of it into the empty can, once I'd taken the top of the can. Premo would probably have worked just fine, but I had an inkling that Firebrick would be kind of a good match for chicken. The only other cans I have in my house are cans of Irn Bru. I'm not sure the world is ready for Irn Bru Chicken. Also, they're pretty precious to me, so I'd have to be sure this worked before boiling half a can up a chicken's arse.
I made a mix of spices, mostly mixing together chicken rubs with Worcestershire sauce, salt and three minced cloves of garlic. I shoved about two thirds of it under the chicken skin, front and back, and then put the rest in the beer. Then I lowered the chicken down over the can, it fit easily, but wasn't likely to fall out. It stood up, remarkably, all by itself and stayed up fairly well.
You have to set the grill up with a metal pan underneath to catch the drippings and send them back into the atmosphere of the covered grill. The coals were spread around the pan as evenly as I could. The grill is actually the grill from my gas grill, since it is slightly smaller, it fit lower down into the grill and could be tilted slightly if the chicken was off balance. That meant the coals were very close to the grill, so this wasn't a good way to grill anything else.
I kept the coals at a medium heat (360f) for an hour and then added 16 fresh coals (that's them sitting on the grill, not where they ended up eventually) and kept the heat at about 350f for another hour. I thought keeping the coals at a level temperature was going to be harder than it was, but it was actually super easy with this grill. I'd do things a little differently next time, just for ease of use, but it stayed at a good temperature for two whole hours without too much work. The weather was nice, so I sat out and read in the hammock, keeping an eye on grill.
At the end of the two hours I put the meat thermometer into the thigh and it read about 190f, 10 degrees over what it needed to be. Still it didn't look dried out, so I was hopeful it would still be fine. The only tricky bit is getting the beer can back out - that's easier with two people and Carol helped lift it while I pulled the can out with a silicon heat glove.
The chicken was really moist, without being undercooked at all. It fell apart very easily and the limbs came off with minimal effort. The flavour of the spices was mild and subtle, but pervasive. The skin was crispy and not too fatty anymore. I was impressed by how well this worked out; bummer that I couldn't really cook anything along with it, but still, this is a pretty great grill trick.
Ate it with grilled parsnips, garlic bread and a spinach salad. Nice!