Okay I'm doing chicken quarters and beans today. Geez I should open a cafe. I'm having way too much fun.
But my cooking's not that good yet.
I'm hoping this will help me learn to do this: I bought a cheap digital meat thermometer.
The Dome thermometer is 265° right now but the chicken is cooking much slower because of the beans and the water.
I've got three huge chicken quarters in there and 4 or 5 pounds of baked beans plus 2 gallons of water in the water pan.
Regular Kingsford Charcoal & no wood chips, but some dry lumps of charcoal that I accidentally made from expensive hickorywood. That should provide enough smoke.
I'm shooting for a 4-Hour burn on this one. People say foil the water pan and don't fill it up because you'll get crispy skin. I'm trying to do this a little slower and I'm going to put barbecue sauce on towards the end to slow it down even more.
Those are from huge California chickens and they're probably full of hormones and things you don't want to think about as you eat them.
I didn't actually buy the thermometer to do chicken but I had to try it out.
I bought a big pork butt and injected it with marinade. It's wrapped up in my fridge right now with a mustard base type rub.
I'll save that for Sunday.