- Hey everybody, I'm chef
Tom, with All Things Barbecue, and today, we're gonna be
makin' beer can chicken. (dripping sounds) Beer can chicken is one of
those barbecue classics, and the concept is really simple. We're cookin' a whole bird, upright, with the beer can in the cavity. Now, why is the beer can in the cavity? Well, there's a couple
of things goin' on there. As that beer gets hot, it kind
of evaporates into the bird, so you get an extra flavor agent, and some moisture added to the meat. There's any number of
ways to season your bird for this process, and I won't tell you that any of them are wrong, but let's jump right into
how we're gonna do it today. We're working with about a
four and a half pound bird here today, and there's not much we need to do to prepare it. But what we are gonna do,
is get underneath this skin, so that we can get some
seasoning under there. Now, a lot of times, you'll see people only seasoning the outside of the skin, and you want your skin
seasoned too, for sure, but you can get a lot
more flavor into this bird if you loosen the skin, and
put some rub underneath there. Now, some of this excess
fat, we can get rid of. We don't need all of that. You are gonna tear the skin a
little bit to get to the legs, but that'll go back into place later. Alright, that should allow
us to access the meat. So let's go ahead, and talk about our rub. Now, let's talk a little about the flavor profile for our cook, today. We're using a hoppy wheat
beer from our friends over at Central Standard Brewing,
called Girlfriend. Now, the notes you're
gonna pick up on this beer are some citrus, and some mild hops, and we're gonna compliment those with a couple different rubs. Plowboys Fin and Feather has some citrus, as well as some rosemary, which is really gonna
go nice with that beer, and then we're gonna go with
some classic barbecue flavor from Plowboys Yardbird Rub. And I'm just gonna do
equal parts of these rubs. So, we'll get a few tablespoons of each. And let's go ahead, and
get this on the bird. Alright, so once we
get the flesh seasoned, we can pull that skin back on top. And then, of course, we're gonna get a little bit in the cavity as well. And then, we'll go ahead
and season the skin. Now you might notice that our beer can is a little bit large for
roasting a chicken today, and that's okay, 'cause we have a really cool tool that we're gonna use. This beer can roasting pan, and canister. We can actually fill this with beer, put some herbs in there,
whatever else you want. Aromatics, I think we'll
do some garlic today. And then we'll go ahead, and place the chicken on top of here. Now, as the chicken cooks, the pan is going to catch all the juices, which is going to prevent
all those flare-ups that you normally get when
you just put a chicken on top of a can inside your grill. Alright, so I'm gonna fill our canister about two-thirds to
three-quarters of the way full. I wanna add a sprig of rosemary to this. We'll do a crushed clove of garlic, and then I'm just gonna add a little bit of lemon peel as well. This is gonna give it some sweetness, as well as a little more citrus aromatic. I'm gonna go place this canister
in the grill to warm up, and this is an important step, because if you start with cold beer, and you put a cold bird on top of it, it's gonna stay nice
and cold in the middle, and it's not gonna cook as well. The outside's cooking,
but the inside is cold. So what we do, is we warm the beer up, and we start with warm beer
inside from the beginning. (sniffs) Ahh, all those aromas are already comin' out of there. It smells fantastic. Alright, we got our canister in place. We're gonna place the chicken
on top of the canister. We're just gonna make sure that these legs are forward, so this is sitting upright, and everything can cook nice and evenly, and then one last thing, just to keep these wings tucked in, and not get 'em too overcooked. We're gonna pull those back. That's nice and tight. Alright, we're ready to go on the grill. We'll be cookin' the chicken today at 350 degrees, on the Yoder
Smokers YS1500 Pellet Grill, and we're running a 50-50 combination of cherry and pecan pellets. It took about two and a
half hours, at 350 degrees, for us to bring this bird
to an internal temperature of 165 degrees, which is
right where we want it. Now, it's hot out of the pit right now, and the thing I wanna do is glaze it with some barbecue sauce, so that barbecue sauce can tack
up while it's nice and hot. Today, we're gonna be saucing
with a new barbecue sauce, from our buddy Andy
over at Smoke on Wheels. This is Kansas City Bootleg. It's a bourbon-infused barbecue sauce, and it's really delicious. Now, I tried this out with pork ribs, and beef ribs this past weekend, and it was awesome, so I'm stoked to try it on some chicken as well. Alright, I'm just gonna brush all surfaces with a layer of barbecue sauce, and like I said, this thing
is super hot right now, so this sauce is gonna
tack up really nicely. We'll just give it about
five minutes to sit on there. Alright, so here's our bird. We're gonna go ahead, and take it apart. These ought to come off real easy. Yeah, and that breast will pretty much just peel right outta there. Why don't we get some
slices of our breast, here, so we can see how the inside looks. Super tender. Oh yeah, that's beautiful. You can see there's still
juice comin' out of that. Nice, moist meat. Let's have a taste. Mm. That's delicious. It's super tender. I love Andy's new barbecue
sauce, it's fantastic. You know, I'm gettin' a little bit of that citrus comin' through. Just a little bit of beer too,
but it's not overwhelming. So, you know, I think this is a really great jumping-off point if you've never given beer
can chicken a shot before. Or, if you're a beer can veteran, maybe this is a new flavor
profile you wanna give a try. Thanks so much for watching! If you enjoyed the video, please
click the subscribe button, and if you have any questions or comments, if there's anything you'd
like to see me cook, let me know in the comments
section down below. For more recipes, tips, and techniques, head over to thesauce.atbbq.com. All Things Barbecue, where
barbecue legends are made.
