First PBC cook-chicken pRon

code3rrt said:

Here's my notes from my first PBC cook.
Decided to try the chicken halves as a first try. I went to the PBC website and watched the video just to refresh my memory. I figured I would simply do as directed. Here is how it went.

First I filled my basket with KBB, doused with lighter fluid, which I don't normally use, lit'er up and went inside to prep the chicken.

Chicken prep:

Seasoned one half with Plowboy's Yardbird, the other half with Pit Barrel All Purpose.

Took me about 10-15 minutes to prep the chicken, checked the PBC at 20 minutes and it was ready to go as advertised. I threw in a fist sized piece of hickory for smoke.

hung the chicken. Now is where things take a little turn. Per the video on the PBC website, it says to walk away for 2 hours, come back and it's done. Well, that was my intention, my plan was to follow the video exactly. At an hour and 20 minutes I just couldn't help myself and had to take a peak, really glad I did.
The chicken looked a bit darker than I expected to see, so I pulled out the ET-732 to check things out. Normally I would have had it on from the start, but I wanted to trust the process. Well, the PBC was running at 325*+....HUH? and the chicken was 160-170 IT.......Wuh?
Sooooooo, The PBC running hotter than advertised, so I have to consider changing the intake vent a little. Just FYI, the outside temps were around 31*F, no breeze to speak of.
Needless to say, pulled the chicken immediately, loosely tented to rest while the rest of the dinner finished.

And then the finished plate.

Now if I had been cooking this on my Kettle, I would've been cooking in the 325-350 range and had my ET-732 running from the start. As you can see, the chicken is a bit dark, not to bad tho.

Overall, I caught it in time, the breast meat was a tiny bit dry, but not bad. The dark meat was absolutely delicious, very juicy. When I was cutting up the finished product, I was kind of surprised at how tender it was, the leg meat pretty much just fell off the bone. I loved both seasonings, both very tasty. The rest of the dinner was fine.

So my take-aways here are that I need to consider adjusting the intake, this is my most likely course. Or, I could leave as is and just adjust cook times to accomadate.

I was a little disapointed at the cook temps running higher than advertised, but at least I caught it in time.

Perhaps Patio Dadio or Noah, if he sees this, have some comments or advice? Or anyone else for that matter.

Hope I didn't carry on too long here, I just figured that with all the folks on here that are trying the PBC's, I'd offer a more detailed report.

Thanks all,
KC

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jmoney7269 said:

If I remember correctly, pbc wants you to use lighter fluid :tsk: on the full charcoal basket outside of the pit till it ashes over. Then add the charcoal basket to the barrel and then your meat on hooks. The cold meat and non preheated pit should yield around 280 average. Good thing you went with your gut on this one. Can't wait to see someone do a properly cooked brisket on these things :becky:

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landarc said:

Someone did a brisket in one, I saw the post on here a while back.

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slammmed said:

Not according to the videos you light it in the barrel.

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