Beer Butt Chicken and more…

Last night, Virginia and I had Josh over for dinner, and while he was here, I poked and prodded for some grilling tips. Josh is what we’ll call “The Man” when it comes to grilling some stuff up… so I was picking his brain for technique and whatnot.

So, up on the menu last night was “beer-butt chicken”. Overall, it’s not a hard concept, and you can make it on the grill or in the oven. In the oven, you do it on a cookie sheet @ 325 for about 3 hours … or so… depending on the size of your bird. On the grill, it ended up taking about an hour and a half over low heat (Which given the wind last night was between 300 – 400 degrees).

So, any bird that’s big enough to hold a can of beer will work. We caught a deal at our local grocery store, so we had a 4.5lb bird.

Grab a can of your favorite beer, and “dispose of” (AKA Drink) half of it. Leave the can 1/2 full and in a small saucepan, put a stick of butter, and whatever spices you’d like in your chicken. For me, I used some ground Sage, Garlic, Onion Powder, salt and smokehouse pepper. 

Get all of your butter and spices blended and happy in the saucepan, infusing all of your spices into the butter. Then, pour the butter concoction into the 1/2 full beer can.

 

The next step is getting the can into the chicken’s cavity. Remove all of the giblets, and trim around the opening so you don’t have a bunch of skin balled up at the end of the chicken. Grab your can of beer and butter and get ready to stuff it in the chicken’s … a-hem… cavity.

Don’t be surprised if it takes you more than one try to get it lined up to where the chicken will stand on it’s own two feet. errrrr… nubs. The top picture is not what you’re looking for. The bottom picture is what you’re going for. Centered, stable, and slightly creepy looking.

After you get it standing, it’s time to get it out onto the grill. Easy enough right? Get someone to open doors for you, and stand it on up at the tallest part of the grill. Watch your temperature, and try to keep it between 300-350 degrees… Mine was fluctuating a bit because the wind was blowing like crazy, but after an hour and a half, I inserted the meat thermometer into the top of the breast and pulled 180 degrees. Chicken, when done is 165 degrees, so I probably could have pulled it out a bit earlier.

This is the finished result. The skin is crispy and wonderful, the meat is juicy, and believe it or not, in the outer-most breast meat, you could taste the sage cooked all of the way through the meat.