Smoked Stuffed Chicken [250F Recipe!]
A whole chicken is brined, stuffed with aromatics and smoked at 250F for about four hours until an internal temperature of 170F is reached in the leg.
Ingredients
- 1, 3-5 lb chicken
- 1 lemon
- 1 onion
- 1 apple
- 2 garlic cloves
- Salt & Pepper
- Paprika
- Olive Oil
Instructions
- Brine the chicken – overnight if possible.
- Chop the lemon, onion, apple and garlic cloves. Throw them in a bowl and mix together with salt, pepper and olive oil. Set aside.
- Take your chicken out of the brine and rinse with cool water. Set on a tray. Now take the mixture you just made and stuff it inside the chicken.
- Rub olive oil all over your bird. This will help give it a nice golden brown color. Then sprinkle salt and pepper all over, and a light dusting of paprika for color.
- Set up your grill for indirect cooking (or use your smoker).
- Place your bird away from the heat, and throw a bunch of wood on your coals. Stick with fruit wood – apple is a good pairing with chicken. Assuming your grill holds its temp around 250, and depending on the weight, your chicken will cook for 3 – 5 hours. You want an internal temperature in the leg of 170. If the bird is bigger or your heat is lower, it will take longer to reach this temperature.
- Let the chicken rest for at least 20 minutes before pulling apart or slicing.
Notes
How you position the chicken on your smoker is going to depend upon the direction of the heat flow. You want the thighs/legs to be closest to the heat and the breast to be farther away.
In an ideal world you want the chicken to reach 165F in the breast and 185F in the thigh but this can be tricky to pull off. Reaching 170F in the leg is an acceptable compromise.
The finished chicken will have a pink ring around the outside and an increased redness at the bone joints. Do not worry about these colors as they are the result of smoking and do not indicate that the chicken is undercooked.