The Best Beer Can Chicken on the Grill Recipe

What could be easier than Beer Can Chicken on the Grill! There’s plenty of ways to cook this recipe, but because I think my recipe is the best I’ll give you my hints on why I think its the best and you can try it yourself. Obviously, beer can chicken is pretty simple. Simply open a can of beer, insert into the chicken, and as the beer heats up it steams and boils into the chicken. Not to hard, eh? And don’t forget, the other five beers in your six pack are for you to enjoy while you wait by your grill for the chicken to be done.

What could be simpler! Well, given that I love to grill and I love beer, I just couldn’t help but tinker with the recipe to make it even better. So, here’s my special hints for the best beer can chicken around.

Hint #1: Like Julia Child would say about wine when you cook with it, make sure you like drinking it by itself before you use it while cooking. Nothing against Bud or Bud Light, but flavor for cooking it does NOT have. Personally, my favorite beer to use is a hefeweizen beer like a blue moon or Pyramid Hefeweizen. So, I open my can of bud, drink it, then pour from the glass bottle (hard to find a Hefeweizen in a can) into the can and then use it.

RULE #1 always use good beer!

Hint #2: Soak the chicken in your favorite beer for 15-30 minutes before you put it on the grill. Yes, I know, it’s cutting into your beer stash to soak your bird in yet another can or bottle of beer. But it’s well worth it. I use a large gallon ziplock bag and only have to use one bottle of beer. Just get all the air out of the ziplock bag after you put the bird and beer in and you get maximum soaking with minimum beer wastage!

Hint #3: Soak your wood chips in beer instead of using water. I have to admit I’m not sure this really does anything extra for flavor as I’ve done it with or without the beer soaked chips. However, since this is BEER can chicken, the idea is use beer every chance we get!

Cooking Time & Temperature: We will be cooking HOT, about 375F to 400F. (sometimes my grill gets hotter than that but I end up settling down around the 375 mark.

What about a good beer can stand? Well, the popularity of beer can chicken on the grill or cooked in the oven has spawned dozens if not hundreds of simple to complex and elegant beer can cooking stands. From your simple wire frame stand to elaborate non-stick surface and double chicken stands, you can find a fantastic selection to meet your needs.

Now for the final Steps!

Prep the Chicken for Grilling:

1.) Rinse the chicken and remove giblets etc. Rinse inside and out. I like my chicken really clean before I grill it.

2.) Bag the chicken in a ziplock bag and marinate the chicken in one bottle of good beer.

3.) Be sure it’s fully thawed. In a rush I’ve quick thawed a chicken before and put it on the grill to find out later that the outside is over done but the very center is still cold and blood red. Not good!

4) Coat the meat with your favorite BBQ spice rub. Inside and out! With a whole chicken, I make sure and coat the outside well AND coat the inside so you get as much flavor of the spice into the meat as possible. My personal favorite happens to be a Sweet Mesquite Seasoning that I buy at the local Costco store which I’ve not duplicated with a recipe of my own yet. It has what I’d call a sweet southwest flavor. Here are a few spice rub recipes you can try or take a look at our wide selection of BBQ dry rub recipes.

Looking to find the best recipes for BBQ Sauce, then visit www.BBQ-Sauce-Recipes.com to find the best advice on Beer Can Chicken and other recipes.

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