BBQ Chicken!

There is perhaps nothing I like better than a good ol fashion weekend cookout. I am talking about when you have company over for hours and you cook with no predetermined time frame and nothing to do the next day. The grill is lit and the beer is flowing and I am about as content as you can be.

Well, that is excatly what my wife and I did yesterday when we had two other couples over and their children for some good BBQ. I decided to cook some chicken and I obviously wanted to make a good impression, so I went for the half chicken approach.

I had two young chickens (approx 4lbs each) and split them first by removing the back bone. The next step is to have them skin side up and to press down with your hand in the middle of the breast until you hear the breast bone break. Then just use a good knife to split the bird down the middle.



I was doing 1/2 chickens for the men and split chicken breasts for the women. I then coated all the chicken in EVOO and applied a BBQ rub.



I then smoked the meat at around 225 degrees for a couple hours. I used a mixture of pecan chunks and apple chips in the fire. I started the meat off skin side down for about 25 min, but I acually think this is more trouble than it is worth (especially if you are using a raised grid) when you are cooking them indirect. During the cook, I sprayed the chicken down with apple juice and covered them with some of my own BBQ sauce. I did this about every 20 to 30 min. I pulled the meat off when the breast meat hit 165 degrees. This took longer than expected but I think that was because I had so much meat on the grill it hurt the air circulation.



When it was all said and done, I served this chicken with potato caserole and baked beans and it was excellent. The meat was juciy and it made you remember why the good old classic of BBQ chicken is hard to beat!