Chicken Halves on a Hunsaker Drum Smoker

[pmillen]

My second cook on the Hunsaker drum was four unbrined chicken halves hanging at 375°.  They were straight from the refrigerator into the drum.  I monitored their IT with a reliable old FireBoard.  The IT shot up rapidly—to 165° in the drumstick in 45 minutes.  I made several verification probes with an old Thermapen that seems accurate but blinks off and on more than I'd like.  (New batteries didn't resolve it.)

I ran the heat up to about 450° for 15 minutes to make the skin crisp and pulled them.

My first indication that they didn't cook properly was that the leg to thigh joint wouldn't easily separate with a twist and neither would the thigh to body joint.  The juices were clear, so that was a welcome sign.

When I cut the joints apart there was a considerable amount of redness near the joints and the bones were red at the joint.  Definitely undercooked to my taste.  The meat directly under the skin was reddish—I've seen something like smoke ring there before—but it also seemed "slick."  That may have been psychological because I was extremely skeptical then.

Everything went into the kitchen oven and I didn't eat any more chicken that night.  It went into salads, pasta dishes and sandwiches over the next few days.

Your thought's?

[old sarge]

Always best to play it safe. You took the right course of action. Question:  Did the chicken taste good?

[MJSBBQ]

I would think that if your temperature of the meat was correct ( I do trust my Thermapen) it would be safe. In my experience, sometimes the meat looks a little less done in color and texture, and I have left it cook a little more for texture and appearance, but the taste didn't change.

[Big Dawg]

Don't have any recommendations, but I will say, better safe than sorry, especially with chicken ! !





BD

[smokeasaurus]

I do my chicken to 172 to 185 when doing the dark meat   Never had dry chicken doing it this way

[Tailgating is my game]

IMO you did the right thing

[pmillen]

Always best to play it safe. You took the right course of action. Question:  Did the chicken taste good?

Yes, it did.  The smoke flavor was milder than I had hoped for.  The Hunsaker has a Vortex fire basket that is intended to mix the air inside the smoker to reduce hot spots.  But it's basically a unique type of heat deflector that prevents the chicken drippings from dripping directly onto the lit charcoal.  So it doesn't make the same kind of smoke fog that my Pit Barrel Cooker (PBC) did and doesn't flavor the chicken in the same way.  The PBC way is better.

I'll remove the Vortex fire basket for the next chicken cook.  I should be able to match the PBC chicken I loved.

[akruckus]

The way chickens are raised in America can lead to some reddish near the bones.  Something about the feed and killing immature birds leads to this.  Nothing wrong with the meat, but always safer to error on the side of caution especially with chicken.

Pasture raised chickens are a different story.

[pmillen]

The way chickens are raised in America can lead to some reddish near the bones.  Something about the feed and killing immature birds leads to this.  Nothing wrong with the meat, but always safer to error on the side of caution especially with chicken.

Pasture raised chickens are a different story.

That was all new to me, thanks.

I decided to see what information I could find online.  I found some interesting information here.  "The bones of young vertebrates (animals with a backbone) haven’t fully ossified or made the change from cartilage to bone.  ...  Because the bones of young poultry are still porous, freezing and slow cooking allows some of that hemoglobin to move from the marrow of the bone into the surrounding flesh.  This may not be pretty, but it is not at all a health risk."

I am guessing that the bone would also be reddish, like my chicken halves were.

[MJSBBQ]

Great information!