Saturday Brew 'n Que

So while my girlfriend is in class I figured I'd keep myself off the streets with a little brewin' and quein'. First time this season breaking out the WSM (yah, yah don't start). Also first time doing chicken and first time using lump. Doing a side-by-side chicken challenge today. One brined and one un-brined bird smoked over some pecan chips.

Brine recipe:
1 gallon water
1/4 c white sugar
1/4 c brown sugar
3/4 c kosher salt
Brined the 3.5 lb bird for 12 hours before rinsing and rubbing. I did put a light coating of EVOO on the birds before applying the rub. Figured since I usually rub down my turkeys it'd be okay.

Here's today's setup:


Brined on the left, un-brined on the right. Using Dale's Pale as the beer, though I figured you didn't need a WHOLE can so a little bit got "drained" out of each can:


More to come

Yup, was smoking in the garage with the door open. We have hurricane force winds going on here all day so I needed to mitigate that.

So I got the WSM up to about 310 with 1/2 chimney. Once I got thin blue I threw the birds on about 12:30pm and the temp dropped to 250. Temps climbed steadily through the cook and ended up getting backup to about 315 with all vents open. Rolled with that until about 2pm when the Maverick said the one bird was 165 in the breast. Checked with an instant read therm and the one bird said 165 in the breast and 180 in the thigh, but the other bird said 145 in the breast and like 165 in the thigh. Pulled the one and wrapped. Let the other one go for about another 20 minutes and checked it again. WSM spiked up to 365 when I put the lid back on but it came back down after I closed a couple of the vents. Checked the temps again: 165 and 180. Pulled and wrapped.

Money shots:




My verdict: meh. The brined bird tastes a little more seasoned but other than that I don't really notice a difference. Maybe if I threw more stuff in the brine I'd get something more. 12 hours was definitely enough for brining these birds. Plenty juicy though with just the right amount of smoke. I'm going to call this one a success. If there is anything left (prolly the dark meat) I'm going to try throwing together a little chicken salad for sandwiches.

No, no real difference that I could tell other than that the brined one tasted a little more seasoned than the other. Maybe if I spatched them and cooked them that way I'd be able to tell a difference in juciness. I did notice that I had zero issues getting the temp up to 300+ and keeping it there with lump vs briqs. I'm sold.

And the only reason my garage looks big is because there aren't two cars in there. If there were you'd have to walk sideways around them and still might have to climb over some stuff.

Dale's Pale from Oskar Blues