EASY Whole Smoked Chicken Recipe w/ Pellet Smoker

Hey everybody, I'm Joey, and today we're gonna have a clucking good time as I show you how to smoke this full chicken. So follow me and let's turn up the tasty. Today, we're going full bird and we're gonna smoke this whole chicken on the pellet grill. This is a weekly dinner around my house. Why the pellet grill? Well, because it's fast and easy. Now there are alternatives here. As you can see, I have the Weber kettle over there, but when I get home after a hard day of work, or when you do, we don't always have a lot of time that pellet grill is a real simple way to fire it up, get ready, and get your food right on the smoker. The first thing we need to do with this bird is we're gonna spatchcock it by removing the spine right here. Why do we do that? Well, it allows this bird to cook a lot faster and more evenly than it would if we put it on in its whole form just like this. So what I'm gonna use is these poultry shears, which my friends at Mercer sent me. Thanks a lot, guys. They sent me a lot of great stuff, knives and other shears. Can't wait to share that with you in another video, but we're just gonna go ahead and get to work. As you can see, I'll just kind of give you a heads up. You got your wings, you got your legs. Right down here is the breast, and back here is the spine. As you can see, it goes from tail all the way over here to the neck, and we're gonna go ahead and get that removed. Right here, we have what they call a spatchcock bird. Funny name, but it does help really turn up the tasty as you cook. Now that I have the spine removed, what's next? Well, I wanna pat both sides really dry with paper towels, and that's gonna help promote a nice crispy skin as it smokes. Now that I have the bottom dried, what I'm gonna do is go ahead and hit it with a little bit of seasoning. Today, I'm gonna go ahead and use this Top Gun Rub from my friends at Code 3 Spices. Look, this isn't a paid promotion. I really just truly like this product, and they actually give a portion of their sales to first responders. So if you haven't checked them out, go ahead and give them a try over at Code3BBQSupply.com, but we're gonna go ahead and get this opened up, and it should be noted that both of our cameramen said that they could actually smell that seasoning as I was applying it to this chicken. I think that says a lot about the quality of this rub. Now over here, we're gonna take a little bit different approach. What we wanna do is we wanna get in this skin right here and really begin to separate that from the meat. Hey, come on in, get a close look at this. So you're just gonna get your fingers in there. Just create some space all around there, okay? And again, this is a very similar technique to what I showed you in our roasted chicken video. All right, we're gonna follow a very similar process here. Okay, so now we got lots of space in there. What's next? Well, over here, I have some soft butter, and as you can see, it's just nice and pliable. What I am going to do now is go ahead and dump in some fresh herbs, some thyme, some rosemary, some oregano, and this all came directly from my herb garden right over there. So the key here with this butter is you want it pliable. You don't want it melted, and you don't want it totally stiff either. So now that I have this all mixed up, you can see those fresh herbs in there, what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna take a little bit of this and I'm gonna begin applying it underneath the skin of this chicken. After we get it under the skin, we're gonna go ahead and get it on the top too. That's right. All over this thing. Just massage it in as good as you can. Look at this, guys. Doesn't this look absolutely beautiful? And if you think it looks good now, wait till it comes off that smoker. It already smells absolutely tremendous. So the next thing I'm gonna do is I have this thermometer from Meater, and what this is, it's a Bluetooth thermometer that I can leave in this meat as it cooks to give me real-time temperature settings. I wanna thank my friends at Meater for sending this to me. I've seen other YouTubers use this. I've been excited to try it, and this is gonna be my test run, so can't wait to see how it turns out. But I'm gonna go ahead and get this in the thickest part of the breast, and then we're gonna go ahead and get that on the grill. This smoker's been heating up for about 20 minutes. I have it running at a temperature of 350 degrees. Why? Well, I think hot and fast is the best way to smoke a chicken because I want that really crispy skin. Look, there's nothing I dislike more. Well, maybe a few things, but one thing I definitely don't like is that rubbery skin. That is no good, man. And what I have found, I've tried different techniques. I've tried running it low at 200 and then cranking it up. As I mentioned earlier, I've tried different oils, but what I find is a steady 350, 375, right in that range. And as far as cooking time, look, guys, this really varies because you get a thicker bird. I've had them take up to an hour and a half. Average cook time is about an hour, hour and 15 minutes for me. Got those grill grates nice and clean. Let's get this on. Look, if you guys have seen my videos before, you know I'm gonna grab a beer after this. That's what I do on these long cooks. I drink, I typically search for conspiracy theories online, but today I'm gonna do something a little bit different. I'm gonna be watching this meter app. This app is really cool. It's my first time using it, but I'm looking here on the app right now. It shows me the ambient temperature. That's the temperature inside the smoker around the bird. It shows me the internal temperature, what it's at right now, and then we can also set a target temperature. Because I have that meter in the thickest part in that chicken breast, I wanna pull that off right at 165 degrees, no hotter. So I'll be back in just a few minutes. All right, guys, the chicken is done cooking. It had an internal temperature of 165 degrees in the thickest part of the breast. And before I cut it open, I just wanna give you guys the opportunity to take a look at that right there. Beautiful looking bird, and you can really feel it. You got that crispy skin right there. Got the crisp over there. I double-checked the breast with an instant read. It was my first time using the meter. It was accurate. Now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna cut this up, and I'm not necessarily the best at this, but I will show you how I approach this. Now, we start down here with the legs and the thighs, because there's really not a lot connecting that together. You can literally just get in there with your knife, and it will just cut away just like that. I mean, it's actually a little easier to handle from over here. Come over here, and there's not much connecting it, so it's pretty easy. And look at that. We got a beautiful chicken quarter right there. Now, if you have those kids at home like I do, and they really like that chicken leg, I've been working on this, but I'm not gonna tell you I'm the best at it, but we come in here, and you just cut in, and you get right in that bone. And look, you got that perfect chicken drummie. You can see that the fat all pulled away, so we know we got some good crispy chicken there. There we go. Another chicken drummie. Kids love those things. Thigh, those dark meat lovers right there. Now, we're left with the wings and the breast, and I have to tell you, the wings, this is the area where I struggle the most. And so basically, the wing comes in like this, and it comes over somewhere, and I like to make a generous cut right over there. Let's see if I did it. I think I'm close. Okay, I struggled a little bit more with that, well, because it got part of the wishbone right there, which was not my intention, so I went a little too liberal with it. Also, just so everyone at home knows, I did let this chicken rest for about seven minutes, 10 minutes prior to cutting into it, so all this juice you're seeing is not because I cut into it too quickly. It's just a really juicy bird. Now, let's see if this wing goes a little bit easier. Come on over here. We're gonna give it a cut, just like so. Get in there, and there's a connective bone right in there. It's kind of tough to get to. Again, I'm not the best at this, as I conceded earlier. It's good. Looks like a chicken wing right there, so we got all our parts, and then we have our breast right here, and you can just, I'm not gonna cut into this, but there's the breast plate right here. I mean, well, heck, what the heck? I'm just gonna go right into that. Okay, so here we go. Now, we have this beautiful, beautifully cooked chicken breast. Just take a look at that. Would you look at it? It looks absolutely tremendous. Now, we all have our favorite part, the part we like to eat. For me, it's always the wing. You're getting hit with that savory flavor from the Top Gun rub, the richness of the butter that just coated this chicken as it cooked, and man, that's an excellent bite. Look, guys, I'm supposed to be filming the rest of this show. I can't. I think we're just gonna have to check out now. This is an excellent bite. I don't know if I wanna take the time away from eating to finish this video, but what the heck? You guys deserve it. Hey, if you like this video, you know the drill. Go ahead and hit that big thumbs up, like button, or even better, subscribe to our channel. We release a new video every single week where we share tips for cooking meat made easy, and we'd love to hear from you guys in the comments below. How do you guys smoke? What tips and tricks do you guys use to smoke chicken? And also, we'd love to know what's your favorite part of this, Bird? Again, let us know in the comments below. Follow us along. We got our new show, Meat America. That's where we're visiting experts on location in their restaurant kitchens where they are sharing proven, crowd-pleasing recipes that you can use to turn up the tasty right in your own kitchen. Follow along. It's gonna be the best decision you make this week, guaranteed. I'll see you guys soon. Gotta get back to this wing.