It took until 9pm for the chicken to reach 180F - 6.5 hours! Quite amazed at how long it took. I was worried that it wasn't going to be moist by cooking it so long. But I didn't need to worry - it was still really moist.
But it didn't pull much more than usual to be honest - so next time I try this, I will go to 200F and see if that makes a difference for chicken. The skin wasn't much too write home about - slightly crispy but not good enough to eat. But the leg & breast meat was delicious - loads of smokey flavour as well as subtle hints from the rub it had been vacuumed with. The rub would have been stronger had I removed the skin & applied directly. Will do that next time I think.
What was amazing was the wood smoke. I read on the smoking table that hickory would impart a bacon-like flavour. To be honest I didn't believe it - most smoking I have done gives a nice smokey flavour, but with the exception of the maple planks for fish or oak chunks for most meats, I have not been able to really differentiate anything other than a nice smokey flavour. Maybe it's practice though. Hickory though was really strong - went well with the chicken. Definitely be using that again - especially with chicken, pork shoulder & ribs.
Something else which was amazing, was the sauce. I normally plump for Stubb's sauces which are all tomatoe based. But based on this blog entry (
http://countrywoodsmoke.wordpress.com/2 ... pork-butt/), which was also posted in this forum, I decided to try a vinegar based sauce. Amazing - all I changed was to add a little Frank's Hot Sauce to the mix. This opened my eyes to vinegar based sauces and something I will experiment with a whole load more.
Anyway - some piccies:
Maverick remote thermometer - nearly there after 6 hours...
6.5 hour roasted chicken on the Kamado Joe:
6.5 hour roasted chicken on the Kamado Joe:
Pulled chicken sandwich:
Pulled chicken sandwich: