Author: Lewis Theakston
Ingredients for BBQ chicken recipe
2 x 4-5lb roasting chickens
Olive Oil
Dark Soy sauce
Black pepper
Preparation for BBQ chicken recipe
Marinade the roasting chickens first by basting them with equal parts of olive oil, dark soy sauce and crack over about half a tablespoon of black peppercorns. For best results place the roasting chickens on the upper rack area of your BBQ smoker at around 250f to 300f for around 4 or so hours until the internal temperature of the chickens reach 180f.
Tend to your smoker once or twice during the smoking process and top up with wood chips as appropriate. Don’t forget to add some extra water to the smokers water pan to ensure that your chickens are getting a light moist smoke throughout the whole cooking process.
Once the chicken has cooked properly, remove the whole chickens from your smoker and wrap them in some plastic freezer bags or aluminium foil and leave the birds to rest for around 30 minutes or so.
Now that the chickens have had plenty of time to absorb the flavours and rest, remove them from your wrap, and gently pull off the tender meat and discard the BBQ chicken juices. A Weber Smoky Mountain or Big Green Egg are ideal smokers for 2-4 medium sized roasting chickens but you can use any smoking apparatus that you have to hand and cook as many as you wish according to the amount of people you have to feed using the same recipe.
Cooking “low-and-slow” on your smoker or grill is the best way to go if you are looking for the best tasting BBQ chicken. Lowering cooking times and turning up the temperature will allow you to serve your meats faster to your guests, but the results will not be as good.
Once you have removed the wings and legs, carefully cut along the breastbone of each chicken and cut it into a few pieces to your liking. You should notice how tender the meat is as you will observe all of the remaining moisture in the meat because you have cooked your chicken to perfection. It is now time to serve the meat to your guests and enjoy that delicious BBQ chicken taste.