Grilled BBQ Chicken Halves with Sticky Honey BBQ Sauce

What's good, everybody? So check this out. Today, I'm gonna show you guys how to turn a whole chicken into two perfectly seasoned halves that'll cook faster, stay juicier, and soak up every bit of that smoky flavor. I'll be using my Sweet BBQ Rub, which is available on my website. That's smokingandgrillingwithAB.com, and that's W-I-T-A-B.com. So here it is right here. So if you wanna bring the same sweet, savory flavor to your backyard, be sure to grab a bottle. Now that enough talking, let's get it. All right, so what I'm doing now is I got a chimney. I filled it almost to the top, you know, with my charcoal. I'm using Kingsford Original, right? I got a tumbleweed right here. We just get that started. Once that's started, just put this on top, and we'll let that start, right? I'm gonna explain all that to you in just one second. Okay, folks, so this is what we're gonna do. Now, I got my chicken. I done already washed it, patted it dry, and then brought it outside, let this air get on it a little bit, and this'll get the skin, you know, pretty much, you know, as dry as possible, right? So it's the water that we wanna take out of there. I know that sometimes, like you'll see me, I'm gonna get my olive oil and I'm gonna rub it down so that I can have a binder so that when I put my rub on there, that it actually stick. If you don't have my rub, when you go to my website, which is smokingandgrillingwithab.com, you know, that's W-I-T-A-B.com, right? When you go there, I'll have a, you know, alternative, you know, like, so for those of you guys that don't have it, I'll have you give you guys some options. That's what I'm trying to say, right? So now, chicken is already done. Let's move this over here to this side. I'm gonna turn my chicken. I'm gonna pat this, cause it's been sitting up a certain way, you know, sitting up the other side. So a lot of the moisture has, on the bottom side, has got on here. So I still like to get all of this off. All right, so let me explain it a little bit better. This right here is the neck. So the backbone comes this way and it always got this little tail piece back here, right? This is what we're gonna do. You wanna get yourself some kitchen shears or you guys can use, you know, a chef knife. My chef knife is sharp. I feel like a lot of people probably will probably have kitchen shears, you know what I mean? But I'll do two. So look, this is what I do. I take this and I get on the right side or the left. It depends on which way you wanna start. All right, so like I just said, you can go either way, right or left. You just take your shears and you just go ahead and cut this straight on down. What we're doing is we're cutting that backbone out, right? And when we're done, you should have a clean cut like this, right? Now we do the same thing on the other side. This time I'm gonna turn it around and I'm gonna come from this way, this angle. And we'll just go ahead and cut. Now, I wanna ask you guys this, what are we gonna do with this whole backbone? What are we gonna do with it is we're gonna put this in a Ziploc bag and we're gonna save this because when it come time in the fall, when it come time to make these, you know, our stock and all of that, look at this. Yes, sir. Now, you see how we got this open? I'm gonna go back in there and clean some of this out of here. Like all of this, these little pieces, I like for everything to be clean. You don't wanna see none of that. All right, so now you guys can see, right? I'm gonna use this. I started using just a paper towel, you know, just to clean up and get all of that out of there. Now, one of the reasons I like to do halves or what we call spatchcock is because when this is open like this, it gets to cook, right? You get that smoky flavor up in here instead of trying to like do a whole chicken, right? So now we'll turn this over this way. I just spread them this way and then I look at it and then I'm trying to figure out which way do I wanna cut, right? And the only way we do that is you can run your finger down here. It's like a little line down here. Anyway, that'll be the center, right? So you can take your shears. You just grab them. You wanna follow that natural line that it has. And just like that, we got two chicken halves, right? Now, this little piece right here is gonna have a little cartilage. That's up to you guys if you wanna take it. Just giving you guys an option. I can take this here and just trim that off of there like that, just a little bit. It just helps it lay flat. And then, you know, this piece right here got all this little extra skin and fat on it. So look, I'm gonna take this and we'll just give this a cut, right? Get rid of that. Because you guys know, half of cooking is really your presentation, right? So you guys look at that right there. Okay, so once you got them cut, you trimmed them, you know, and they look, you know, good. I take this little flap off. Let's get up in here in that joint, right? And I save that. And now I'm getting ready to put all of this inside of the, I'm gonna put all of this inside of a Ziploc bag and save that. All of this, this is what gives us that good flavor, right? So we'll just leave them just like this. Now, watch what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna transfer these over here because now it's gonna be time to season, right? Now, because there's still a little bit of moisture in here, let me move this off to the side. It's gonna make it a little bit easier for the rub to stick, right? I'm gonna actually start on this side. This is underneath, right? You see how the flesh is open right here? This is that good meat, right? So when we season here and then we put it down, this infuses it with everything as far as like the smoke go, that flavor. And then we got the seasoning on there too. You know what I mean? That's what makes it right. All right, so now we'll be using, you know, my sweet. I got both of them out here. You guys can look. I got the hot barbecue rub or the sweet barbecue rub. Either way you wanna go, it's up to you, but I'm gonna go ahead and go with the sweet, right? So now let's go ahead and hit it. Look, let me do it like this so we don't get no shadows. You know what I mean? I like to make sure I got it on there. Ooh, look at that right there. Look at the color. This is why you wanna use like a rub. You know what I mean? That you familiar with, you know what I mean? Cause you'll know the color that it gives you. You know what I mean? Cause we look for all of that, right? This is gonna give me a little bit of sweat too. Look at this. Yes, sir. Okay, so to bring you up to speed, what I did was I dumped my chimney in there where all my coals was white. So that's hot, right? And then I put some over the top, you know, some fresh ones on there. So those are burned. Now I'm gonna show you all of that cause I wanna go ahead and close this and I wanna get my temp, make sure I got my vents and everything right. So come on in here. Let me just show you this part. All right, so as you can see, you can see the black, you know, charcoal briquettes on there like that. That's just on there. Those will eventually catch, right? Now, if you guys look down at the bottom, let me, I'm gonna wiggle this. I left a little ash down there so you guys can see. You can see the vents down there, hopefully, right? I know my, you know, my Weber kettle grill, I usually keep it at about halfway, maybe about a third of the way open, right? I leave that open like that. Cause listen, it draws from the bottom. I put this over the top. I move this away from over the heat source. I wanna know what the temperature is over here on this side, right? And then I know when I vent over here, I put this at about halfway. This should bring me up to about 350. Once I see that and it holds that for a couple of minutes, what I do is I'm gonna go ahead and just put all my chicken halves right on top of the grates. Okay, so right now it's holding about 340, working its way up to 345. I know it's gonna settle in right around 350, anywhere between 350 and 345. You know what I mean? That's where it'll be. So now that I know it's gonna hold that, now it's gonna be time for me. Let me just open this up and look at that right there. That's what we want, folks. Now what I'm doing is I'm gonna go ahead and take just how I had them on this, you know, cooling rack right here. I'm gonna take it and I'm gonna put it over here on this side. Oh, we're gonna do it this way. All right, so what I did was I rearranged, you know, my chicken halves. So I got my legs, you know, this is a small part, right? So this part up here, that's the thicker part. That's gonna be facing towards the heat. And we put that down just like that, right? And we'll leave it that way. In actuality, I think I'm gonna just move this down a little bit more over here, just like you guys see. Now we'll put the lid on top and we let this work. Okay, so look, I came and I checked it at 30 minutes just to see how it was going. You know, I got my meat probe, right? This is my thermometer. This is how I go ahead and check to make sure that everything is on track, right? So we looking for the breast to be 165, right? So now we'll look at it. It's been another hour, you know what I mean? So I'm gonna go ahead and open this up. Oh yeah. Now, if you guys notice something, I'm gonna show you right now. If I kind of like touch this or it moves, see how it rolls, I got a spinning grate on here. You know what I mean? And it's uneven. That's why I need to just like level it. So I can see where I got a little bit of burn right there. Now I made myself a little bit of spritz. Well, I always keep it at the ready anyway. So what you're gonna see is I'm gonna grab it right now. I'm just gonna spritz this little dark part right there. Right? And then I want to bring this over here a little bit like this. I need to pick this up and reposition the, you know, the sheet I got it sitting on, but I'm gonna leave it like this. Let it, I'm gonna let it dry again. Now I want you to pay attention to this part over here. Come here, look at this right here. This right here is my barbecue sauce, right? All I did was add a little bit of honey into this. You know what I mean? You just want to add that. Listen, it's gonna help caramelize on top. And when we brush it on there, we still gonna be able to taste the flavor of the barbecue sauce. So if you guys don't have mine, you guys can use any of your favorite, you know, just add some barbecue sauce to it. And then we're gonna brush it. Right? So I got this ready right now. Now I'm gonna let this dry just a little bit more. And then we're gonna go ahead and, you know, start brushing it. All right. So now I'm gonna take my brush and what we're gonna do is coat this, right? And I'm gonna put the lid back on here and we're gonna let this set. It takes about five. It depends on how hot your grill is, right? But it'll take about five, anywhere between five to eight minutes, right? You want to stay with it. Because what we're gonna do is just bake this on here, right? And become where it becomes tacky. Could you see how it's going on here? Like super wet, right? We'll keep it like that. You guys gotta tell me right now, I know your mouths got to be watering. This is a great option. You know, for families to make this at, you know, in the evening, especially on the weekends, you got a little bit of time, right? You can make this, make yourself a couple of them. You know, and then you put this out and let your family cut it. They can cut the legs from the thigh, breast, a wing. It's been smoked. You can put your glaze on it and it's your favorite glaze. Right? So look at that right there. Let me take some pictures of it when it's wet. And then I'm gonna take some pictures of it once I'm done with it. Okay. So after closing the lid, I let the, you know, the barbecue sauce, you know, sit on there and I let it set. I only let it go for seven minutes. Now I'm gonna take this off so you guys can see it. Look at that right there. It should be a nice color. The camera should be catching it. You can see here, let's just go ahead and take this. I'm gonna put it on my board. Let me go ahead and get the second half. We'll bring this one over here also and just lay it right next to it. And that right there is nice folks. All right. So this is what you get right here. These came out, you know, like perfect, right? So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna let it rest. All meats need to rest, but this one right here, I'm gonna let it rest for about, I'm gonna say about eight minutes. After that, then we'll go ahead and cut it, taste it. And I promise you this right here, get your backyard or inside just for dinner. This is a cool thing to do right there on your patio. You know what I mean? Just go ahead and smoke some chicken half. Hey, you know, make some sides, bring this all inside. You know what? I think I'm gonna make me some rice right now. So by the time I come back, we'll cut these and then we go from there. Okay, so I let the chicken rest enough. Look, I made some rice. I just got me a little bit of rice. I'm more concerned about this chicken right here. Right, so now I'm just gonna go ahead and cut this off right here. We'll take this one over here and you can see it kind of like just, it redistributes the juice that's in the inside and then a little bit be on your board, but that's okay. So now I'm gonna take this and we're just gonna cut this and get this right off, right? Ooh, my goodness. When you cut it, just the smell that it gives you, the aromatic, right? Oh, oh, here, let me put this over here. I don't know what to do, folks. Let me put this right here. Ooh, it's still hot though. Nothing like smoked chicken. Now that I got that, you know, taken off, I just ate the skin. Now I'm gonna tell you guys a little bit of a little trick. If you guys want your skin to be more bite through and, you know, or more crunchy, what you can do is before you put your barbecue sauce on or whatever glaze you guys are gonna use, what you wanna do is you wanna raise the temperature up and just cook it for about 10 minutes, you know, on a high heat, anywhere about 450. That'll do it, just for about, remember, and we wanna do that on indirect. I mean, not over the coals, but away from that. You know what I mean? And that'll go ahead and firm up that, you know, your skin, right? Then you can apply your glaze. But anyway, I don't wanna like over talk. I can't wait to bite this. This tastes so good. Cheers, y'all. Nothing like barbecue. I can taste the smoke deep into the meat. Hey, y'all, this right here is fire. As you can see, I knocked that thigh off. I'm ready to knock this off too. Hey, not to mention that the rice is fire too. So listen, with all of that being said, now you guys know, you guys got other options. Listen, we always putting on all the chicken parts on there, you know, separately, but how about we doing like this? I'm telling you, two chickens, they inexpensive. You do these, you kind of like spatchcock it, cut the spine out, you know, separate it, put it on your grill, infuse it with the heat, you know, and you infuse it with the smoke. After you do all of that, you serve it whatever you wanna serve it with. You know what, it's summertime right now anyway, at the time of this video. I don't know when you guys are seeing it, but if you watching it now, I suggest you guys get on your balcony, get outside in your backyard, do whatever you gotta do, and let's get them whole chickens and let's feed them family. You know your families, right? Now, if you're new to my channel, let me take this time to say, thank you for watching this video. Don't forget to like, smash that subscribe button, and tell everybody out here, check this out. There's a channel out here that's simplifying these recipes and taking the mystery out of cooking. With that being said, I'm gonna go in there and pour myself a tall glass of grape Kool-Aid, and I'm out, folks. Peace.