Over the years, I’ve cooked a lot of beer-can chickens, and I’ve tried varying the methods just about every way I can think of. Competition barbecuers cook the birds on smokers at a relatively low temperature (225° to 250°F) for a long time (2½ to 4 hours). Smokers produce the richest smoke flavor, but they never really crisp the skin.
I prefer to cook beer-can chickens on a conventional charcoal or gas grill at a higher temperature (350°F), so the recipes that you’ll see here don’t include instructions for smokers. If you’d like to grill a beer-can chicken in a smoker, add 1 to 2 hours to the cooking times in the recipes.
By grilling using the indirect method (see below) and adding wood chips to the coals or smoker box, you still get an intense smoke flavor. A higher heat has two advantages: You don’t have to wait 4 hours for dinner (the chicken cooks in ¼ to 1½ hours). And the chicken skin always comes out crackling crisp.
Being a grill guy, I of course recommend cooking beer-can chicken and its variations on the grill. But condo and apartment dwellers, as well as indoor-only chefs, should take comfort in the knowledge that beer-can chicken can be cooked in the oven with almost equally spectacular results. You get the same eye-popping presentation, the same crackling crisp skin and succulent meat. The only thing you’re missing is the flavor of wood smoke. When cooking beer-can chicken in the oven, set it at the same temperature you’d use for grilling, usually 350°F. Position the oven rack low enough to accommodate the full height of a chicken (or turkey) on a beer can, so the bird doesn’t touch the roof of the oven. Place the chicken on its beer can in a roasting pan and take care when placing it in the oven or taking it out not to spill the beer from the can. The oven cooks by the indirect method, of course. To direct grill indoors, use your broiler or a grill pan on your stovetop.
Beer-can chicken and its variations can be cooked equally well on charcoal and gas grills. The former have two advantages: Charcoal grills are easier to smoke on, and they enable you to burn wood. The drawback is that charcoal grills are fussier and messier to use and slightly less predictable.
Gas grills offer the advantage of lighting at the push of a button and maintaining a consistent heat with the turn of a knob. Their chief disadvantage is slightly diminished flavor, for unlike charcoal, gas leaves no taste. (Actually, when it comes to gas, not tasting it is a good thing!) It’s also harder to smoke using a gas grill, although many new models have smoker boxes with dedicated burners, which makes this task easier.
Gas and charcoal grills both do a great job cooking beer-can chicken, and because they’re outdoors, you keep the mess out of your kitchen and you can introduce the flavor of wood smoke. Almost all the recipes in this book call for using either a charcoal or a gas grill. You will find a few dishes that are best cooked over charcoal.
Charcoal grills come in all shapes and sizes: You’ll need one that’s large enough to set up for indirect grilling (see page 9)—ideally about 23 inches across. The grill should have a tightly fitting domed lid that’s high enough to accommodate a chicken (and if you’re really into it, a turkey) on a beer or soda can. The grill should also have vents for adjusting the airflow and, thus, the heat. A hinged grill grate makes it easy to add wood chips to the coals. The common kettle grill works great for beer canning chicken, as does the 55-gallon steel drum grill. In fact, about the only charcoal grills that won’t work for beer canning a chicken are flat-top table grills and hibachis.
However much we may rhapsodize over charcoal grills, the vast majority of people in the United States grill on gas. For beer canning, you’ll need a gas grill with at least two heat zones. It, too, must have a lid high enough to accommodate a chicken on a can. Other desirable features for a gas grill include a built-in thermometer, drip pan, and smoker box with a dedicated burner; however, you can cook beer-can chicken without these. Always make sure you have enough gas in the tank before beginning to grill your chicken. I try to keep a full extra tank on hand.
The recipes in this book call for several grilling methods, most often direct or indirect. Direct grilling is what most of the world means when it talks about grilling: The food is cooked directly over the fire. Direct grilling is a high-heat method used to cook relatively small or thin pieces of food quickly. Typically steaks, chops, chicken breasts, fish fillets, vegetables, and bread are grilled directly.
GRILL |
TEMPERATURES |
High |
450° to 650°F |
Medium-high |
400°F |
Medium |
325° to 350°F |
Medium-low |
300°F |
Low |
225° to 250°F |
There are two ways to set up a grill for direct grilling. In the first, the glowing coals are spread in an even layer to make a single-zone fire over which the food will be cooked. On a gas grill, you’d simply light the appropriate burner. This method is fine for cooking a small amount of food, say a steak or chicken breasts for one or two.
You’ll get better heat control if you build a three-zone fire, consisting of a hot zone, medium zone, and cool or safety zone. To do this using a charcoal grill, rake two thirds of the coals into a double layer over one third of the bottom of the grill. Rake the rest of the coals into a single layer in the center third. Leave the remaining third coal free. Use the hot (double-coal) zone for searing, the medium (single-coal) zone for cooking, and the cool zone for warming or letting the food cool off if it starts to burn.
To set up a gas grill for three-zone grilling, on a two-burner gas grill, set one burner on high and one burner on medium, using the warming rack as your safety zone. On a three- or four-burner gas grill, set one burner on high, one or two burners on medium, and leave the last burner off.
Larger foods, like pork shoulders and whole chickens, would burn if grilled directly. As its name suggests, in indirect grilling the food is cooked next to, not directly over, the fire. The grill lid is closed to hold in the heat, turning the grill into a sort of outdoor oven. This is also the method used to cook tough cuts of meat, like brisket and ribs, that require long, slow cooking at a low or moderate heat. Indirect grilling allows you to work over a more moderate fire (300° to 375°F) and makes it easy to introduce the flavor of wood smoke. This is the method to use to cook beer-can chicken.
To grill on a charcoal grill using the indirect method, dump or rake glowing coals in two piles at opposite sides of the grill (some grills come with special side baskets for this purpose). Place an aluminum foil drip pan in the center of the grill, between the mounds of embers. You’ll grill your chicken or other food in the center of the grate over the drip pan (that is, away from the heat), while keeping the grill covered. By adjusting the top and bottom vents you can obtain the temperature you desire (usually medium, about 350°F). When grilling indirectly for more than 1 hour or so, you’ll need to add twelve fresh charcoal briquettes per side or a corresponding amount of lump charcoal. You can add coals you’ve ignited in a chimney starter; recover the grill immediately afterward. Or you can add unlit charcoal—leave the grill uncovered for a few minutes until it ignites, then put the cover back on.
To grill on a gas grill using the indirect method, if you have a two-burner gas grill, light one side and put what you are cooking on the other, unlit, side. If you have a three-burner gas grill, light the front and rear or outside burners and grill in the center. If you have a four-burner gas grill, light the outside burners and again cook the food in the center. No matter which kind of gas grill you own, preheat the burner or burners you are lighting to high, and when they are hot, adjust the burner knobs to obtain the desired heat.
Wood smoke is essential to the flavor of beer-can chicken. Wood comes in two forms for smoking: chips and chunks. For a light wood flavor, simply toss unsoaked chips or chunks on the coals—a technique used mainly in direct grilling. For a more pronounced smoke flavor—the sort associated with traditional American barbecue—soak the chips or chunks in water (or a mixture of water and beer) for an hour, then drain them before adding them to the fire. The soaking causes the wood to smolder rather than burst into flames, so it generates more smoke.
By varying the wood, you can subtly vary the flavor of the food. Like the various spices, certain woods are better suited to some meats than others. Heavy woods, such as mesquite and pecan, have a stronger smoke flavor than fruit woods, like apple or cherry. The best all-purpose woods for smoking are hickory, oak, cherry, and apple. In the recipes that follow, you’ll find woods suggested, but don’t feel you have to rush to the store if you don’t have them on hand. The truth is that the smoke flavors are pretty similar and most chips are interchangeable. Almost any hardwood can be used to smoke beer-can chicken with sublime results. Never attempt to smoke with softwoods, which put out an unpleasant sooty smoke, or pressure-treated lumber, which contains noxious chemicals.
To smoke on a charcoal grill, simply toss the wood chips or chunks on the piles of glowing embers before you put the food on the grate.
To smoke on a gas grill, if your grill has a smoker box (a long, slender drawer or box into which you can put wood chips for smoking), fill it with wood chips and light the burner under or next to it on high until you see smoke. If your gas grill lacks a smoker box, you can position wood chunks (not chips) under the grill grate directly over one of the burners or pilot lights and preheat on high until you see smoke. Once you see smoke, turn the grill down to the temperature at which you plan to cook.
If you want to use wood chips in a gas grill that doesn’t have a smoker box, you’ll need to make a smoker pouch. Wrap the soaked chips in heavy-duty aluminum foil to make a pillow-shaped pouch. Poke a few holes in the top of the pouch with a pencil or knife tip, and place the pouch under the grate over one of the burners. The traditional drawback to gas grills is that many don’t get hot enough for smoking. To overcome this, preheat the grill to high until you see smoke—lots of it—then turn the burner knobs to reduce the heat to the desired temperature and put on the food.
For a charcoal grill, I like to use lump charcoal, made from pure wood and recognizable by its irregular-shaped chunks. This is a natural product, containing no additives or fillers. Look for it at grill shops and natural foods stores, or order it from one of the Mail-Order Sources (see page 311).
Of course, the vast majority of grillers in the United States use charcoal briquettes, which, in addition to raw wood, often contain furniture scraps, coal dust, and petroleum binders. This may sound off-putting—it is off-putting—and partially lit briquettes give off a strong acrid smoke flavor. But the truth is that if you let the briquettes burn down to glowing coals, these impurities burn off and the food will taste pretty much the same as if it had been cooked over lump charcoal. And even though I prefer lump charcoal, and use it whenever I can, I also want to go on record reporting that most of the competition barbecue champs use briquettes.
In other parts of the world, grill maestros grill over wood instead of charcoal. The advantage is obvious: Wood releases smoke and other flavorful components when it burns. Charcoal loses these components in the manufacturing process. It used to be that to grill on wood you needed whole logs and an industrial-strength grill. Now you can buy wood chunks at your local hardware or grill store. Simply light them in a chimney starter (see page 15). When the embers glow red, rake them out in the bottom of the grill just as you would charcoal. Remember that wood burns more quickly than charcoal, so you’ll need to replenish the fuel every 30 minutes or so. (To learn how to gauge the heat of a charcoal fire, see page 14.)
When cooking beer-can chicken on a gas grill, you’ll be using propane or natural gas. The only thing you need to do is make sure you have enough for a couple hours of cooking. This may seem pretty obvious, yet even the mightiest of gas grillers has been known to run out of gas.
Forget what Bubba says. All true grill masters religiously clean their grill grates before putting the food on the fire. To do so, preheat the grate (it’s a lot easier to clean a hot grate than a cold one) and brush it vigorously a few times with a stiff-bristled wire brush to knock off any rust, ash, or burnt-on debris. Dislodge any really stubborn debris with the metal scraper you’ll likely find at the end of the brush.
The next step is to oil the grill grate before you put on the food. Oiling the grate prevents food from sticking, obviously, but it also gives you better grill marks. And, while it isn’t necessary for beer-can chicken, it’s essential when you grill chicken under a stone and prepare some of the various steaks and fish dishes in this book. To oil your grate, once it’s hot, fold a paper towel into a thick pad and, using tongs, dip it into a bowl of vegetable oil and rub it over the bars of the grate. Alternatively, you can rub a chunk of beef fat or bacon over the hot grate. I prefer using a paper towel, because it helps to clean the grate in addition to oiling it. Never spray oil onto the grill grate over the fire. The very tiny droplets of oil can catch fire, resulting in a flare-up.
As for follow-up maintenance, brush the grill grate again after you’re done cooking. When the grill is cool, discard the fat in the drip pan. I’m not a fanatic about cleaning the fire box, which holds the coals, but do remove any visible pools of grease or large chunks of burnt-on food with a garden trowel.
To gauge the heat, hold your hand about 4 inches above the grate and start counting “one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.” Soon the intensity of the heat will force you to remove your hand.
• A high fire is a two to three Mississippi fire.
• A medium-high fire is a four to five Mississippi fire.
• A medium fire is a six to eight Mississippi fire.
• A medium-low fire is a nine to ten Mississippi fire.
• A low fire is an eleven to twelve Mississippi fire.