Big Bud's Beer Can Chicken

Beer Can Chicken is something that my family had tried a while ago and my wife and I kept saying that we should try it but for some reason we never got around to it.

Low and behold, what did I find in Guy Fieri Food: Cookin' It, Livin' It, Lovin' It?  Why a recipe for beer can chicken of course.  So I figured why not give it a try, plus it involves bacon so I really couldn't resist.

Now let me preface this by saying that before this I had NEVER tried to cook a whole chicken before, so this is from a newcomers perspective to whole bird cooking.

The recipe starts with creating a spice mixture(again not giving away the entire recipe) that contained:

• Dried Oregano
• Garlic Powder
• Onion Powder
• Paprika
• Ground Ginger
• Ground Sage (I didn't have any sage so I used Summer Savory as a substitute)
• Fine Sea salt
• Ground Black Pepper

The mixture is then rubbed half inside the cavity of the bird and the other half on the breast under the skin.  Now being a whole bird cooking newbie, I was very glad that the book had picture guide for the main steps of this recipe, including rubbing the spice under the chicken's skin.

Once that was done, you sit the chicken down onto an open beer can, the idea being that the beer from the can will baste the interior of the chicken as it is cooking which will give you a very moist chicken.  The next step is to create what i like to call the bacon poncho, by stuffing a few slices down the neck of the bird to seal it up and keep the juices in and then lay the other strips of bacon down the outside of the bird.

The chicken all ready for the oven sporting it's new bacon poncho.

Apparently Bacon Ponchos aren't good for a heat wave.

The Poor Bacon Poncho didn't last long enough to get a final picture.

The chicken all plated up on top of some white rice that was cooked in chicken stock, served with some stir fried veggies that were cooked with some chicken spice to give them a little extra kick.

When it was all said and done, the chicken turned out to be absolutely fantastic, with enough of a kick from the spices while still maintaining a bit of a sweet note.  The one issue that i did have was that the beer can was a little problematic to get out of the chicken with one person so I did have my wife give me a hand getting it out to avoid a potential mess.

The recipe was very easy to follow and complete, just needed a little patience to get the bird up to temperature.  I also had enough left over that I was able to make a fantastic chicken stock from the carcass and then strain it and use it and the left over chicken for a great ramen soup to get my chop-stick on.