Smoked Chicken

From America's Test Kitchen Season 12: Backyard Chicken Dinner

When done right, smoking produces chicken with moist, tender, pleasantly smoky meat and an attractively browned exterior. But smoking a chicken is no easy feat—if the heat level isn’t just right, the delicate breast meat inevitably dries out and with too much exposure to the smoke, the flavor of the chicken becomes harsh and bitter. Brining the bird ensured the meat would remain moist, and building a slow-burning moderate fire (by piling lit coals on top of unlit coals) allowed us to extend the life of the fire without having to tend to it. A pan of water underneath the chicken helped control the level of heat. Using chicken parts (rather than a whole bird) allowed each piece to be infused with smoke flavor. Finally, we discovered that using wood chunks and smoking the chicken for only half of the cooking time produced chicken with a pleasant—not overpowering—smoke flavor.