Monday, November 29, 2010

Easy Beer Can Chicken Recipe

What could be easier than Beer Can Chicken on the Grill! There’s plenty of ways to cook this recipe, but because I think my recipe is the best I’ll give you my hints on why I think its the best and you can try it yourself. Obviously, beer can chicken is pretty simple. Simply open a can of beer, insert into the chicken, and as the beer heats up it steams and boils into the chicken. Not to hard, eh? And don’t forget, the other five beers in your six pack are for you to enjoy while you wait by your grill for the chicken to be done.

Nothing could simpler! But, we grilling fanatics just have to tinker with the recipe to make it even better! So, given my love of grilling and love for great beer, here’s a few of my own suggestions and hints for making what I think is the best beer can chicken around.

Hint #1: Be sure and use a beer you like to drink. Like cooking with wine, never use either beer or wine in a recipe that you don’t like to drink. The most popular beer is, of course, Bud or Bud Light. Nothing against good ‘ole Bud, but it just doesn’t have enough flavor for cooking. My favorite beer is a hefeweizen beer like a blue moon or Pyramid Hefeweizen. So, I simply use a Bud can (after drinking it of course) and fill it with my favorite beer. You just can’t find a lot of the Blue Moon or other Hefeweizen beers in cans.

RULE #1 always use good beer!

Hint #2: Marinate the chicken for 15-30 minutes in your favorite beer prior to grilling. Fear not, you’ll still have 4 beers left in your six pack to drink! The best way I’ve found to marinate meat is in a ziplock bag. It maximizes marinating all of the meat but you don’t have to use as much marinade or in this case beer. Simply get all the air out of the ziplock bag after you have put the chicken and beer in it.

Hint #3: Soak your wood chips in beer instead of using water. I have to admit I’m not sure this really does anything extra for flavor as I’ve done it with or without the beer soaked chips. However, since this is BEER can chicken, the idea is use beer every chance we get!

Cooking Time & Temperature: We will be cooking HOT, about 375F to 400F. (sometimes my grill gets hotter than that but I end up settling down around the 375 mark.

What about a good beer can stand? Well, the popularity of beer can chicken on the grill or cooked in the oven has spawned dozens if not hundreds of simple to complex and elegant beer can cooking stands. From your simple wire frame stand to elaborate non-stick surface and double chicken stands, you can find a fantastic selection to meet your needs.

Now for the final Steps!

Prep the Chicken for Grilling:

1.) Rinse the chicken and remove giblets etc. Rinse inside and out. I like my chicken really clean before I grill it.

2.) Bag the chicken in a ziplock bag and marinate the chicken in one bottle of good beer.

3.) Be sure it’s fully thawed. In a rush I’ve quick thawed a chicken before and put it on the grill to find out later that the outside is over done but the very center is still cold and blood red. Not good!

4) Coat the meat with your favorite BBQ spice rub. Inside and out! With a whole chicken, I make sure and coat the outside well AND coat the inside so you get as much flavor of the spice into the meat as possible. My personal favorite happens to be a Sweet Mesquite Seasoning that I buy at the local Costco store which I’ve not duplicated with a recipe of my own yet. It has what I’d call a sweet southwest flavor. Here are a few spice rub recipes you can try or take a look at our wide selection of BBQ dry rub recipes.

Learn more about BBQ Sauce Recipes. Stop by David Durick’s site where you can find out all about Beer Can Chicken and other great recipes.

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