My friend, Burhan, came to visit to Toronto for three weeks before he went back to Indonesia to continue with his ministry. On his last weekend in TO, he treated my family and a couple of our friends to a BBQ lunch. The idea also emerged since my dad just bought a new grill. At first, we wanted to BBQ some ribs but it turned out to be too pricey. So, we decided to go with beer-can chickens. For those who does not know the popularity of this chicken might get grossed out by looking the pictures I'm about to post. I've had many "ewwwwsss" when the pictures were posted on facebook. LOL!!
Anyway, the chicken turned out SUPERB! I could totally taste the sweetness of the beer. The chicken was also very juicy and all the spices seeped into the chicken meat perfectly. Even the driest part of the meat, which is the breast, was juicy and full of taste! Since we grilled two whole chickens, I decided to use two different types of beer: Stella Artois and Alexander Keith. Unfortunately, I forgot which beer belong to which chicken =(
Beer Can Chicken
As for the recipes, I started with Rob Rainford's Beer Can Chicken 2 Recipe, which you can see here: http://www.foodtv.ca/recipes/recipedetails.aspx?dishid=5377
After prepping all the ingredients and was about to begin to marinade the chicken, I realized that I did not have a marinade injector to inject the chicken with the seasoned stock. So, from then on I just improvised my way through. I followed Rob's cajun seasoning, except that I substituted dried rosemary for the dried sage. I seasoned inside the cavity of the chicken and below the skin. I did this by squeezing my fingers in between of the chicken's skin and meat and lifting off the chicken skin. I also inserted bruised fresh thyme under the skin and inside the chicken cavity. To the beer cans, I added bruised thyme, bruised garlic, and some of the cajun seasonings. I mixed beer and water in the drip pan and added a few slices of lemons.
I decided to follow Rob's recipe to smoke the chicken using hickory wood chips. However, I had to reduce the cooking time since my chicken was smaller than the one stated in the recipe. I don't know where he could get a 6 - 7 lbs chicken!! Mine was only about 3.5 pounds. Anyway, I basted the chicken every 45 minutes with melted butter. I could feel the crunchiness the skin was developing as I basted the chicken. But, after the chicken was fully cooked, I took it out of the oven and tented it with foil, and we lost all the skin crunchiness.. =( Maybe I shouldn't have covered it with foil and just leave it out in the open instead.
Well, next time when I get a marinade injector, I want to try out this recipe again the way Rob would've done it. But this chicken did good to demonstrate our new grill! =)
