How much of a mess does it make? I prefer the way the bird comes out when i start at 450 rather than 425, but the difference in spattering and generally dirtying the oven is enormous, so I’ve dropped my temp down to 425.
It’s not like controlling your oven with a dial. In practice I find it’s easiest to raise the temp by adding more airflow. Stifling the temp by curtailing airflow is trickier. Too little adjustment and the temp stays high. Too much adjustment and you can douse your fire. In practice I wouldn’t grill this way. I would lock in at 350* and vary my cook time.
I get the gist of the recipes. You want crispy skin and juicy meat. High initial temps to render the skin and then lower temps to let the meat cook through.
Sure, but it’s slower to respond than an oven. In this case I’d suggest running the smoker wide open, perhaps without the water pan. It ought to be in the range of temperatures you like. I’d then probably shut all the lower air vents and let the temp drop. I can try it next time I do chicken. I typically cook them high heat anyway on the smoker.
Do you leave the door open to drop the temp quicker or do you just turn the dial down and let the oven cool on it’s own? I might have to use my grill thermometer to see how quickly my oven cools from 425 to 350 or to 250. No I don’t have an oven thermometer like AB suggests.
That is why drying the skin for two hours in front of a fan (I didn’t mention the fan) is included in the directions.
And, I rinse the bird thoroughly, to get the salt off.
We have some thick sheets that I use for this.
I agree that you might as well cut the bird after spatchcocking. That would require turning over four pieces instead of one at the halfway point.
No idea. It sure is smoky, though. We have a self-cleaning oven for that business.
I leave the door open for a bit to bring the temp down. I mean, I open the door to turn the chicken over and stuff, but I turn down the temp first, and hope the oven cools a bit. At the end, when I want the bird to rest, I am more aggressive about cooling the oven, if I don’t just take the bird out.
But I can buy a nice chicken in the afternoon, and cook it that evening in an hour and a quarter, then rest it half an hour, and have a delicious roast chicken for supper. If I followed your recipe, it would be a huge production. I’m interested in maybe cooking outdoors to make my life easier, not harder.
If you have to clean after one use, that’s more mess than I want for anything less than my New Year’s goose. I make roast chicken most weeks in the winter. I don’t want to be stinking up the house by cleaning the oven all the time. That’s actually WHY I dropped my “high” temp from 450 to 425.
Yeah, I read that already. No one is trying to change the way you cook.
I tend to avoid recipes from the NYT because they over-complicate cooking. I’m interested in expanding my repertoire of techniques, though. And “don’t heat the kitchen, don’t have to clean the oven” are good reasons to consider baking/roasting outdoors.
I wonder if i could do cookies or pie with the grill. Pie, like chicken, starts high and then wants a lower temp, but it’s not very fussy. Cookies are probably too fussy about precise temp to work well.
Dammit those BGEs are expensive. I am looking at a 24" version, and its $1250 but that gets you just the damn grill. The accessories that you need* are looking to cost at least another $500 and that is WITHOUT a stand. I would make myself a table, and that’s gonna be 250-300 on top of that. Sales tax is gonna be another 160 or so. So the 24" BGE is gonna be north of 2200.
*need to have items include the basic footing base (not the nest), the platesetter, an ash tool, an ash basket and a second layer cooking surface and a support structure for a 2nd layer surface.
If I were going to buy a Kamado style grill now (I’m not) I think I’d go for the Primo Oval. I like the flexibility of easy 2 zone cooking a lot.
The Primos are pretty cool. I admire them greatly. But the XL Primo oval is $2000, although it includes the stand and the $20 Charcoal stick. Yippie!
Suddenly, the Weber Summit S6 is starting to look like a bargain at $1800.
I have the money. I can afford these. I just have a real, real hard time pulling the trigger when the Weber 26 kettle is $360 and can do all the direct grilling as well as these kamados, all the low & slow grilling almost as well as the kamados, plus it has some advantages over the kamados. Like it can be moved. It’s bigger. There are more accessories like rotisseries. It can use briquettes. It can do indirect cooking without the need for a $120 platesetter and a $60 charcoal rail. It will never crack.
Same brother. It’s hard to beat a kettle for versatility. I love my WSM and it’s a bargain as well for what it can do.
Yeah, you can buy a kettle and a WSM for less than a BGE. I don’t think I could justify a BGE at MSRP unless I didn’t have space for two Webers.
I have both and use them both equally, just for different things
Quick cooks that don’t need the hottest heat, Traeger.
Long cooks and hotter heat( bone in giant ribeye ) ate on the egg
Yup.
So many options out there now.
I swear by my five year old flame boss.
Second best grilling purchase I ever made (next to the BGE).
It is like having smoking cheat codes
Today’s outdoor cooking used both grills.
1lb of pork belly cooked three ways is on the Egg.
Started with a 500F sear then dropped the heat down to 225 to smoke for the next 5-6 hours
Mojo, Char Siu and BBQ(dry rub) flavors
Oh yeah, and the Traeger was used for lunch.
Cheapo Costco pepperoni pizza with extra fresh herbs from the garden
I’m doing tri-tip with chimichurri sauce later.
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It’s cold and rainy here. I’m roasting a chicken in the oven. A nice fresh locally pastured chicken – first slaughter of the year. 
