Cooking with beer

[turkeyjerky214]

I'm planning to smoke a whole chicken tomorrow doing the whole "beer can up the butt" method. I've never done this before and was wondering if anyone has who has barbecued with beer before could offer any wisdom. I've always heard that you want a heavier beer (Busch, Bud, etc), but I've never heard anyone talk about using craft beer.

Right now at my disposal, I've got an Imperial IPA, a Robust Porter, a Scottish Export, and an Amber. I'm of course not opposed to buying something else at the store.

Here's the recipe of the chicken I'm working with:

Rub
6 t paprika
2 T pepper
2 T salt
2 T sugar
.5 T chili powder
1 T garlic powder
1 T onion powder
.5 t cayene pepper

Mop
12 oz beer
1 C chicken stock
1/4 C water
1/4 C canola oil
1 T of the rub

Beer mixture
8 oz beer
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/4 C white vinegar
4 garlic cloves, minced

Any ideas? I'm thinking the Amber might be tasty with this.

[bmock]

I would stay away from hoppy beers unless you want to infuse that flavor. Just my opinion. The Scottish would be good I think.

[l1chris]

I would go with the scottish or the porter- or both! let us know how it turns out. I've always thought about doing that.

[siwelwerd]

I would stay away from hoppy beers unless you want to infuse that flavor. Just my opinion. The Scottish would be good I think.

+1

[JoeHPhil]

With other thicgs I've cooked the porter did not work as well with chicken - I'd go Scottish

[Witch Doctor Dale]

Always thought the beer in the butt was cooking the whole bird while its sitting on a can of beer, my brother does this with Bud Lite, a tasty chicken, best served with an APA

[JoeHPhil]

To be fair, this is the best use of that Busch Lite in your fridge.

It is really the steam and aromatics going into your chicken anyway

[turkeyjerky214]

It is, Dale. After reading that the aluminum or dye or whatever from the cans can be bad for you (of course, what isn't these days?), I got this stainless steel thing.



I mostly wanted it for the drip tray to make cleanup in the smoker easier, but it's got the added bonus of being stainless steel and having the can thing.

And Joe, I actually headed to the mountains or Busch last night, so there's no more left. I might mix up all the stuff with the Scottish and see what it smells like. If I don't like it, I can always run to the store and pick up some gold-tops.

[SteveO]

I did a beer can chicken with some Russian Imperial Stout and it turned out great.

I usually only fill the can half full though.

[Kerth]

Nice stainless equipment. I always used the opened can from the beans.

[astx813]

I seem to recall earlier this summer a few of my friends were discussing this very topic. The beer in question was Ska's Modus Hoperandi, and after the fact, the guys involved seemed to agree that it was a waste of a prefectly good can of Modus. The key aspect of beer can chicken is that there's liquid, so they seemed to feel you could use a can of water and get pretty similar results. Set aside any comments about the similarity between light beer & water...

[JoeHPhil]

I've done it with Apple juice and it was great too - just a thought

[turkeyjerky214]

Typically, I only use apple juice when I do beef. Actually, when I do brisket, I'll put apple juice in the water bowl and then spray the brisket every half hour. For the last hour, I spray the hell out of it and the wrap it in foil.

I ended up going with the Scottish Export. Maybe it was a placebo effect, but I definitely thought I was getting a hint of it. I even made my girlfriend tell me which beer she thought it was, and that's the one she said. Granted, she only had 4 beers to choose from.

I highly recommend this recipe to anyone who has a smoker. I'm not even a big chicken fan, and this was absolutely amazing.

[RobertHSmith]

I've used a can of bud, budlight, miller, miller light, bud select and water. The bud select and miller seemed to add more malt flavor.

[astx813]

I've used a can of bud, budlight, miller, miller light, bud select and water.

I was ready for a punch line here. I was reading it as "I've used a can of water, water, water, water, water, and tap water."