Rodney Scott’s Smoked Chicken
This might just be the prettiest chicken I’ve ever made
I’m gonna try my best to do this one justice on a gas grill.
Time: 5 hrs 15 minutes
Ingredient Availability: 5/5
Difficulty: 1/5
I’ve never made smoked chicken before, but from what I’ve heard, chicken takes smoke very well. I really enjoy smokey flavors, as most foods don’t have them so it’s always a nice treat to have a smokey piece of meat. As far as this recipe goes, I decided to make it because it is used in another recipe from Rodney Scott’s barbecue book. Plus, I could make two chickens from this recipe, which gave me of plenty of food for the week. Given how much praise Rodney Scott has gotten in recent years (for many years really), I had high expectations for this recipe. If it doesn’t come out super smokey, I think I can chalk it up to using a gas grill with smoke tubes.
Key Ingredients and Omissions:
Rib Rub Ingredients
Don’t forget you chickens
Rodney’s Sauce
Making a gallon is a big commitment, so I made a half batch
When it comes to smoking, a key ingredient has to be smoke. The best way to get smoke is probably a smoker, followed by a charcoal grill. The most convenient option I had was a gas grill and some smoke tubes. The pellets I used in the tube are called cookin pellets. Other than smoke, there weren’t any special ingredients, so I used everything that was called for.
Tools:
Grill
Sharp knife and/or kitchen shears
Cooking Review:
Spatchcocking Chickens, Mixing Rib Rub, and Seasoning Chickens: 45 minutes
In order to make this recipe, you do need to use another recipe from Rodney Scott’s book: Rib Rub. I decided to use any empty gelato container I had to mix it together, which was pretty much the perfect size. Mixing everything together took about 15 minutes. It would be easier if you used a larger container to mix everything, as brown sugar is always harder to break down and mix than other seasonings. After mixing, then you could transfer the rub to a smaller container. After that was done, I spatchcocked the chickens. I just cut out the back bone with scissors/ kitchen shears, flipped the chickens over and pressed down on the breast plate to break it so that the chickens laid flat. The back bones could be used to make chicken stock, but I wasn’t up for it, so I just tossed them. Finally, I sprinkled the rub fairly generously on both sides of each chicken. The recipe calls for 3 tbsp of the rub, which was plenty for the chickens. I used all of the rub the recipe calls for.
Grilling: 4 hrs 30 minutes
I set up a smoke tube in my grill and tried my best to keep the temperature between 250 and 300 degrees. Most of the first hour and a half of cooking was at a temperature closer to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. While the chicken was grilling for that first 90 minutes, I made Rodney’s sauce. I made a half batch of the sauce, which took about 40 minutes all together. One thing to point about about making the sauce is that it only took about 5 minutes for the sauce to reach 190 degrees Fahrenheit after adding the final flavorings, so be sure to watch for that. Once the initial 90 minutes of grilling had passed, I sauced both sides of each chicken. The recipe says it should take about another hour for the chicken to come up to 165 degrees internally, but mine took another three hours, even with a higher cooking temperature than what the recipe called for. At times, the grill crept up to 300 degrees and near the end I increased it further to 350 because I was getting tired of waiting and hungry. Even then, only one of the chickens was done, the other took another 40 minutes. Once they were done, I let them rest for 5 minutes before eating.
Analysis:
Something I immediately noticed was that the chicken’s skin was a little tougher than I was expecting. In some spots it was kinda crispy, but most of it took some extra effort to chew through. Flavor wise, I thought the flavors were good, though the smokiness was on the lighter side. I do wish the flavors were a little more bold. This could just be an issue with the grill I used, but worth noting. All parts of the chicken except for the breast were very juicy. After eating some more, I began to notice some sweetness, as well. Unfortunately, I could see more evidence of the smoke than I could taste. The chicken had a nice slightly pink hue that comes from the smoke. The sauce is interesting. It is mostly vinegary with some sweetness to it. The lemon flavor mellows over time. It has some spice to it that definitely grows as you eat more of it. I wouldn’t say it’s anything special. Overall, I’ll give this recipe a 7/10. I think if I had a better grilling setup it could’ve been better. I’m sure that if the cook time was more accurate as well, the score would be better. I’m not so sure that baking this chicken wouldn’t yield a much different result, so it’s hard to say that the time and effort using a grill takes is worth it.
Still looks good
