Re: First chicken...
I did my first whole chicken on the KK tonight. It was on a vertical stand (not beer butt) with Bobby Flay’s 16 spice rub and lemon-infused olive oil (Stonehouse) over/under the skin. I did it on semi-direct heat, since it was vertical - I had it towards the front of the grill away from the hotter part of the grill, but without a heat deflector (I like crispy skin). Things were going smoothly for the first 90 minutes or so, rocking along at 350F over cherry wood. Got distracted for a while and when I went back to check on it about 30 minutes later, the temp had shot up to 500F! Needless to say, when I opened the grill, the chicken didn’t look too happy! It was crispy skin alright - seriously blackened. I had forgotten to put a drip pan under it and the fat rendering out caused the flare up in temp and blacken of the skin.
But, here’s the power of ceramic grill cooking, and the KK in particular, the chicken was not dried out at all when I pulled it off the grill. Yeah, the wing tips and end of the legs were toast, but the bulk of the actual bird was still moist and tender and there were even salvagable bits of crispy skin (woo, hoo). That’s the thing the ceramics do best in my opinion – roasted chicken. These grills are so amazing that it’s hard to screw it up!
Next time, I won’t forget the drip pan!