I have written many times about my gas grill that I do a lot of my summer cooking on. A gas grill is great because they are fast to light and bring up to temperature for cooking, but I have wanted one of the barrel style charcoal smoker grills for a while now and I finally broke down and picked one up. This is a great rig for all your outdoor cooking. You can slow smoke by using the small offset fire box, or put your charcoal in the main grill chamber and grill right over the coals. My first use of this new grill was to grill chicken, and it was the best chicken I have ever grilled.
The biggest obstacle with a charcoal grill is getting the charcoal started. There are many varieties of charcoal available that have lighter fluid infused in the briquettes to make them easier to light, but a better choice is to use a charcoal chimney to light the coals.
These are simple and effective tools to get your charcoal going. Load the top chamber with your charcoal, and wad up 2 or 3 sheets of news paper and stuff into the bottom chamber. Light the paper and let it set for 20 minutes. After that the coals will be burning perfectly for cooking what ever you have on the menu. There are no fire balls shooting up and snatching your eyebrows to worry about and no trips to the ER for severe burn treatment.
After cutting up a whole chicken I put the back, wings, and neck back in the freezer to add to the other backs and wings I already have saved. My wife and i will save up these pieces until we have a good amount and then we will spend a weekend making home made chicken noodles. I will have to write about that the next time we make it. Neither of us really likes the back and wings that much so this is a much better use of them for us. The breast, thighs, and legs I seasoned with some Johnny’s seasoning salt and set them aside while I got the charcoal going. Once the coals were hot I dumped the chimney load of coals on one end of the grill and spread them evenly.
I was a bit nervous about grilling the chicken. I have always had trouble with chicken on the gas grill. There is just so much fat that comes out of the chicken I always get a lot of flame and burnt chicken on the gas grill. I have had the best luck with the two burner gas grills by simply only lighting one burner and cooking the chicken mostly over the burner that is not lit. My plan was to use a similar tactic on the charcoal grill. I started by placing the chicken directly over the coals to get a good sear on the chicken, and then moved it off to the side away from the heat. This grill has a couple of drafts on it that make the temperature fairly easy to control and I was able to easily maintain a temperature around 300 degrees inside the grill while cooking.
After about 20 minutes the chicken was cooked and had an internal temperature of about 180 degrees which is hot enough to kill any bacteria that may be present in the chicken. I then coated each piece with some Bull’s eye BBQ sauce. This is my go-to sauce. I like the original blend the best and always have a bottle on hand. I let the chicken cook still off the heat for 5 minutes and then turn it over and coat each piece again. After another 5 minute wait I flipped the chicken back over and applied another coat of the sauce and then moved the chicken directly over the coals to caramelize the sauce.
After another 5 minute wait I removed the chicken from the grill and was ready to eat.
This new grill is definitely going to get a lot of use. It is easy to assemble and even easier to use. I have plans to grill some steaks, burgers, hot dogs, shrimp, fish, and vegetables. I am also getting things together to smoke some ribs, pork shoulder, and fish as well. I will be sure to tell you all about each of those when the time comes. There is nothing better than food cooked on a grill and if you do some shopping around you will find a grill like this one for a price you can afford. Once you start using it you will not want to stop.
Clacked by Jeff Love
on Jun 27, 2010 @ 10:32 EST5EDT
