Smoked Spatchcock Chicken

Springtime has officially began and with it brings about my favorite time of the year. The weather is starting to warm up, the NCAA tournament is well underway, golf season is here, and ultimately grilling season is upon us. Unless you’re like my family, where grilling season is all year round, regardless of weather. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, right? Only the strong survive? I could keep going but you get my point. The elements can’t stop me from firing up the grill or smoker to fulfill my cravings.
With that being said, one thing that I absolutely love to smoke, and sometimes grill to finish it off, is chicken. Particularly, whole, spatchcocked chicken. If you’re not familiar with the term spatchcock, it simply means to remove the backbone of typically a chicken or turkey, and lay the bird out flat. By doing this, you’re allowing for a more even cook and also reducing the cooking time. It’s a win-win situation. It’s definitely my preferred method for cooking chicken or turkey.
When smoking whole chicken, there’s endless possibilities of options of where you can take your chicken in terms of flavoring. From seasoning blends, to rubs, to injections, mops, wood to use, and so on. The combinations are endless and ultimately up to your discretion and what you’re looking for or whatever you’d like to try experimenting with that day.
Let’s start off with fuel source. My favorite wood to use for smoking chicken is mesquite wood. I like it for poultry and fish. It’s a hardwood that imparts tons of flavor. If you want a lighter flavor profile, you could use a fruit wood such as apple. I really like to mix woods as well. For this particular cook, I blended in some apple wood to the mix. One thing to keep in mind is how much wood you’ll need, as well as another fuel source if you choose. I like to supplement with charcoal. I actually start off with a bed of charcoal, getting it completely or near completely ready, and then add a split of wood on top. Typically, one split of wood should last around 45 minutes, so depending on how long your cook time is, you can kind of guesstimate how much wood to plan on using for your cook. The chickens I used for this particular cook were quite large, so my cook time was nearly 4 hours. I tried to maintain a temperature between 250 and 275 degrees Fahrenheit.
Next, let’s discuss seasoning options. There’s essentially no limit to how you can prepare your chicken. Whether you want to go savory or sweet or spicy, that’s up to you. For this cook, I chose to go in a semi spicy route. I used Meat Church Holy Voodoo rub and also injected the chicken with Tony Chachere‘s Creole Style Butter. If you’ve never heard of Meat Church, I highly recommend you look it up. Matt Pittman is someone that I’ve been watching and following on YouTube for quite some time and his seasonings and rubs that he creates and cooks with in his outdoor kitchen in Waxahachie, Texas are absolutely incredible. The Holy Voodoo rub is a spicier rub that not only imparts incredible flavor, but also add a beautiful color to the meat. Adding the Creole butter injection to the chicken, for me, is crucial to keeping the chicken moist and juicy throughout the entire cook. It also pairs well with the Holy Voodoo in keeping with and adding to the spicier, Cajun-ish theme. I use that same injection for turkey even if I’m going a more traditional, savory route for seasoning the outside. It just keeps the meat super juicy. And hey, butter makes everything better.
You can also brine your chicken and/or mop or sprits periodically throughout your cook. I like to sprits with apple cider vinegar every half hour to 45 minutes throughout the cook. The next time I smoke chicken, I plan on trying out a mop recipe that Malcom Reed from How to BBQ Right created and used in one of his recipes. He’s another guy that I’ve followed and been a fan of for quite some time. I would highly recommend looking him up and watching his videos or listening to his podcast for ideas, tips, and tricks.

However you choose to season your chicken and whatever wood(s) you decide to use, most likely you’re going to end up with a delicious product. The key to ensuring that you end up with a juicy, smoky, delicious product, is maintaining that 250-275 degree temperature throughout the entire cook. 165 degrees is the internal temperature you’re looking for in the deepest part of the breast meat. If you’d like to crisp up the skin even more at the end, there’s a few options you have. First, you could put it in your oven on a baking sheet, with or without a wire rack, and hit it with a higher temperature with the chicken placed on the highest rack possible. Secondly, you could use a kitchen torch or culinary torch like you would use for creme brûlée or a meringue pie. This method, however, can potentially be dangerous, inconsistent, or depending on the size of your torch, time consuming. The third option, which I prefer, is to transfer the wood/coals mixture to a charcoal grill or the main cooking chamber of your smoker if it allows for it, and cook it directly over the coals and residual wood that is still viable from the cook. I try to place the chicken farther away from the coals to prevent too many flare ups from the juices from the chicken dripping down into the coals. If your grill has the ability to raise and lower the grate where your fuel source is on, try lowering it as far as it’ll go. Otherwise, only add a small amount of coals and adjust accordingly so as not to completely burn up and ruin your skin, which I did the first time I ever tried out that method. So learn from my mistakes. Your meat can be salvaged, but unfortunately the skin cannot. So ease into it and only go until you like what you see. When the skin starts cracking and splitting, you’re probably as far as you’ll want to go if you haven’t taken it off sooner. I like to let the chicken rest, lightly tented with foal, for 20 minutes or so, before I cut into it. You want to let your meat rest so that it way it doesn’t dry out. Letting it rest allows the internal juices to redistribute and retain more moisture so you’re not just losing all of the juices on the cutting board. I know it can be all too tempting not to wait, but trust me it’s well worth it.
So however you choose to season and smoke your chicken, spatchcocked or not, just get out there and do it. You’ll love the product and maybe you’ll even enjoy and find an appreciation for the process in which you got there. And I can almost guarantee, especially if it’s your first time, that you’ll want to do it again. You’ll pick up on little things that you’ll want to adjust and do differently next time. Or maybe want to try a new seasoning or rub or barbecue sauce. Whatever it may be, enjoy the weather and get out and cook. Fire up that smoker or grill and get to it!