With the wife and kids away this weekend, it was just me, the 2 dogs, my Weber Smokey Mountain, and 2 birds that had already met their maker. The dogs got me up early, just in time to get the smoker fired up and prepare to smoke the birds. I had picked up to Purdue Oven Roasters on my way home from work. Both of these were just over 6 lbs, so I decided not to use the "beer can" method, and instead opted to just lay the birds on the grate. I used the "Minion" method for this smoke, filling the charcoal ring halfway with unlit charcoal, and covering with a full Weber chimney of burning charcoal. Naturally, I'm using good old Kingsford charcoal.
For the bird preparation, I first rinsed them, then smothered them in Wild Willy's rub. It really doesn't get much simpler. I place one bird on each rack. For the smoke, I used a mix of wood chips that included apple, cherry, with some oak and hickory. I soaked the wood chips in water, and wrapped 2 handfuls in aluminum foil with a few holes punched. I also threw in 2 handfuls directly into the smoker. The wood chips in the aluminum really didn't start to smoke until maybe 90 minutes into the cook.
The birds cooked nicely. The top rack finished at roughly 4.5 hours, and the bottom rack at 5 hrs. Starting at 8:20AM, this was all ready for a lunch time meal!
I gave one of the birds to my neighbor for them to have for dinner. I'm still waitng to hear how that turned out for them. I had also made some Carolina Red sauce for them. Hopefully, they enjoyed it.
