Smoking a chicken

[bouche]

Has anyone smoked a chicken? I'm going for it this weekend. Need 2 days to plan it for fack sakes. I'm brining the thing in 4 litres of water, 1 1/2 cups kosher salt, 8 tsp prague powder (curing salt) and 1/2 cup of brown sugar. It needs about 18 hours and then about 4 or so hours out of the brine to rest. Finally 3-4 hours to smoke.

I tells ya, every meat smoking adventure is not so much of a chore as it is patience. You can't decide to smoke a turkey one day for dinner. You need to decide that a week in advance. With home smoked bacon, if you want the good stuff you probably will need 2-3 weeks as you gotta special order natural pork belly. I don't even know if you can get that from a shop like Loblaws.

At least with a little 1.5 kg chicken, you can make the call within 2 days, maybe even one if you start the brine process early.

[fluffhead77]

Seems to me, from the things I've read, that a 3lb bird like that shouldn't need to brine for more than 6-8 hours. How did it turn out?

The pic on FB looked awesome. Almost like a peking duck...

[rubberdinghy]

huh...i smoked chicken parts tooo this weekend and tried to copy the jerk chicken sammy's from Bluesfest. It wasn't the same but still tastey!

[bouche]

Seems to me, from the things I've read, that a 3lb bird like that shouldn't need to brine for more than 6-8 hours. How did it turn out?

It turned out great. Still eating it. One of the breasts was donated to a couple of sandwiches. Sliced thin, it is perfect.