Sorry no pictures. I'm juggling kids/family and didn't have time. Also, I'm pretty new at this - I currently have a cheapo gas grill and the most complicated thing I've made is probably wings (which I tend to burn but they still taste good). I'm going into detail here and while I understand I could simply call Noah on his cell with any questions, I didn't bother and figured I could figure it out and learn after if necessary.
So the PBC arrived yesterday (Saturday) via Fed Ex at 3:15 or so. I already bought charcoal on Friday, 2 whole chickens and a 8 pound pork shoulder Saturday morning. I lined the bottom with foil (careful not to cover the airhole which I adjusted for my altitude of 800' to 1/4). Since it was late and the kids were going to be hungry, I decided to just go with the chickens. Fired up the charcoal, using a weber starter.
http://www.amazon.com/Weber-7416-Rapidfire-Chimney-Starter/dp/B000WEOQV8The starter was pretty big and dumping the hot coals into the charcoal basket didn't work out so well. It was too big to simply dump them within the barrel with the charcoal basket in place at the bottom. After, I was thinking I could have raised the charcoal basket unto the grate and dumped onto them from above the barrel (which wouldn't have been far). Then, pick up the basket, lift out the grate and put the bsket back in. Didn't notice how Noah did it in the video and maybe he did that. I was too hyped up to look at the videos again.
I split the chickens just like the video said. I'd never dealt with whole chickens before (I've done a thanksgiving bird) so cutting it was a bit intimidating. Until I realized how easy it was to go through the bone. I also didn't have a big enough cutting board for 2 whole birds but I'll get a new one.
Seasoned with the beef and game seasoning and popped them in the cooker. I looked in a few times and everything looked fine. I didn't bother monitoring the temperature, figuring this was the simplest of all cooks and just was going to go by 2 hours in the vid.
After 2 hours, I went with my thermometer.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0021AEAG2I don't remember what anyone else said for a temperature, but I saw that on the FDA and Food network sites - sorry was the quickest reference I could find - it said 165-175. I think that's the safety range. When I popped the thermometer into one of the birds, it said 193. So that freaked me out a little. Did I overcook them? Was my thermometer wrong? Was I measuring them wrong? They were dark (again sorry no pics) but I wasn't sure. Whatever, I'm ok with learning. And it wasn't like I was gonna have raw poultry so I was comfortable with that.
Of course when I went to pull the birds, I ended up dropping one half. But since I made 2 full birds, then it was just a lesson learned.
So I brought the birds in. They didn't come apart as easily as Noah's did in the video. The wings more or less fell apart at the second joint or something like that and the breast a bit tougher. But on the 3rd half, the breast came right apart as expected which was good. So maybe I just needed to let them rest longer.
Overall: the chicken was likely the best I've ever had. I have three kids and they complain about everything, so the bar is low for their acceptance but they liked it. More importantly, both my wife and I were impressed. The cook was relatively simple which, as you can tell from this post, is important for me.
I'm very pleased and am going with the pork shoulder today. I'm a big NFL fan and my boys (I'm not saying who it is because I doubt they are liked here lol) are on at 1 so I'll be starting my cook around noon. Going to rewatch the videos this morning.
I'm very happy with my purchase so far and would recommend it for (1) those who like playing with fire, (2) those with any skill level and (3) those who like to eat. That's a nice wide demographic.