Summer is here (almost technically at least, but the rising mercury says it’s here already) and it’s time to break out the grill and start making those summer-time favorites! Oh I’ve already made burgers and hot dogs on the grill. Being the most simple, they are what we crave the most when it comes time to start charring food over hot metal grates.
But the newness of it is over for the season. It was time to start making things a bit more complicated. Things that would have my neighbors turning their noses in my home’s direction, following the intoxicating aroma of some masterfully prepared hunk of meat cooking on my grill.
And also, the smell of the masterfully prepared food on the grill is ALWAYS being cooked by someone with breasts and a uterus. Someone who has delivered two strong sons into this world. Someone who, unlike the man of the house, knows how to make food that is at least edible. The man of this house tends to take a mad scientist approach to cooking and it never ends well. A WOMAN grills here.
Back to the topic at hand! Beer Can Chicken is something that my husband has wanted to try for a very long time and I’d be lying if I said I weren’t really curious about it too. The thing is, I sort of assumed that it was one of those “guy things” that go hand-in-hand with summer-time grilling. I thought that maybe it was such a big deal because it was a way for man-grillers to show off some cooking skills with something other than brats, weiners, steaks, and burgers. And the fact that it involves a half-consumed can of beer definitely screamed MALE BRAGGING RIGHTS to me.
To all the men-folk out there who are proud to prepare this dish with skill (and the women who do so as well, just not as loudly as the men) I apologize. Apparently you people know your stuff.
I am a marinator (is that a word? Well it is now!). I marinated the chicken before violating it with the beer can and grilling it. Here is how I did it.
Damn Good Beer Can Chicken
My Recipe
1 small whole chicken (4-5 lbs.)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup hot sauce (I used Tabasco)
1 Tblsp. honey
1 tsp. chili powder
1 Tblsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. each of salt and pepper
1 can of beer filled half-way
Combine all of the ingredients (except the beer and chicken) in a large bag. Add chicken and coat with marinade. Marinate overnight for at least 12 hours, turning occasionally.
Preheat your grill. The chicken needs to cook over indirect heat. If you are using a charcoal grill, get your coals hot and then spread them out the the edges of the grill so that the chicken can sit in the middle. If you are using a gas grill, light half the burners and set the chicken over the dormant burners.
Put the beer can into the bottom of the chicken. The indelicate way to explain this is to just tell you to put the beer can up the chicken’s butt…or where the butt used to be. Use the chickens legs along with the beer can as a tripod to sit the chicken up. Like this:
Getting the chicken on and off the grill can be a little tricky. Just get a big metal spatula and put it under the can and use a hand to steady the bird. Move the thing carefully to the grill and arrange it in the tripod position again. It’s the same routine to get it off the grill, only this time use a towel or oven mitt to protect the hand steadying the chicken on the spatula.
This chicken will need to cook in the grill for about an hour and a half. (If you are using a gas grill, keep the heat to a medium low.) Don’t check it for the first hour. Don’t lift the lid of your grill, don’t stand around and wait. Go do something else for that first hour and just let it do it’s thing.
When the hour is over, check the chicken. Most likely it will not be done. Check for doneness by slicing open a thigh deep to the bone. If the juices run clear it’s done. If the juices are pink, it needs to cook longer. Like I said, it takes about an hour and a half.
When the cooking is done, remove it from the heat, wrap it in foil (beer can still in butt) and let it rest for AT LEAST 10 minutes but 20 is better.
Unwrap the chicken and remove the can from it’s butt. There is no unmessy way to do this as the skin of the chicken and the meat inside of the chicken are closed in on the can and it is slightly stuck. It will not just slip out if you lift the chicken. Since it is a small bird, if you can find the dexterity to lift the bird with both hands and use your pinky and ring fingers to slide the beer can out while holding it up, that would be great. OR you could hold the bird over the sink, turn it upside down and let the contents of the beer can empty through the neck hole, place the bird on it’s back and take the can out that way. If you’re an easy way out person or a “Look how dexterous I am” person, one of these options will work for you.
I’d be lying if I said that the immature idiot in me didn’t laugh looking at this. But, aside from having the beer steam the bird, another good thing about having a metal can in the carcass is that it helps cook the meat on the inside nicely.
This bird was DELICIOUS. Now I get all the hubbub. It’s really freaking good. It was juicy, flavorful and tender. It was everything a grilled chicken should be. And thanks to the marinade, the skin was slap-your-momma good. This has now become something I will be making on the grill several times during the summer, EVERY summer.
Look, you’re lucky you got a picture with skin still intact.
I hope you try this. It’s delicious. It’s tricky getting the bird on and off the grill with the beer can up it’s butt, but once you get past all of that and actually eat it, you too will understand.
Enjoy!
