Roast Chicken over an apple wood fire in the Hark

  • Sunday night the other half asked me if I could smoke a chicken......well, do fish swim ? It's just a matter of how much smoke ! :D I used a Bannockburn Free Range chicken, which I think are the best. It was brined in Game Changer Chicken Brine from Smokin J for about 4 hours. Patted dry and left to stand for another 30 minutes in the fridge while the fire got going.

    I decided to fire up the Hark Tri Fire using some apple wood I had from a deceased apple tree I'd be hacking into with the chainsaw during the day. I've got lots of chips, chucks and branches of applewood to last me years !

    The base of the fire was a chimney of redgum charcoal from Aussie BBQ Smoke (no, this isn't a paid commercial)

    I wanted to do it at what I call normal roasting temps, which is around 180-200c. Preferably at the high end of that. We were going to have salad so spuds or other veggies didn't come in to calculations which meant the chicken had the Hark all to itself.

    I have a theory about beer can chicken, which is basically that it does nothing to moisten the meat and only blocks the cavity from cooking properly. But I do like the idea of cooking the chicken standing up, which is why I think people seem to like the beer can method. It's got nothing to do with the beer in my opinion.

    Part way through, I turned it around so the bird would cook evenly, and it's a good excuse to have a look anyway.

    After about an hour, things looked good.

    And the proof was in the pudding so to speak. Lots of juices, fully and evenly cooked, mouth watering chicken. It came up real well in sangers for the past two days as well.

    Big Green Egg - Asmoke Pellet Grill - Weber Kettle - Maximus Pizza Oven - Dragon Hibachi - Ziggy Portable - baby kamado - Grillz 2 burner - Cobb BBQ - Converted Gas Bottle Spit - Charbroil Grill2go - Anova sous vide - Digi Q controller - plus Tip Top Temp - Smokeware cap - Grill Grates

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