Another beautiful weekend day, another day of excellent cooking and eating. The objects of T-Bone and my attention were a a couple chickens. Of course, just throwing the meat on the grill would have been way too simple. Here’s how we spent a majority of our Saturday.

Before doing anything, the chips needed to be soaked in water. Here we’re using oak.

Next came the spice rub, a mixture of paprika, brown sugar, black pepper, garlic powder, cayenne, cumin, and chili powder (no we did not forget the salt).

Now we needed to prep the birds (remove the giblets and rinse).

Salt and the rub were then liberally applied to the inside and outside of the birds. Also some chopped onion, lemon, and a bay leaf were put inside the cavities.

The chickens were then mounted on the rotisserie. Note the use of skewers to close the cavities (we didn’t have any twine to tie the birds shut so the aromatics wouldn’t fall out as they spun).

Before the actual cooking could begin, the wood chips needed to be drained and added to the smoker box. The flame was fired under them, and when they started smoking the flame was turned down. At this point the rotisserie and rear radiant heat element (what actually cooked the chicken) were turned on.

The lid was closed and temperature checked. We wanted to keep it low, somewhere around 250. Now the waiting…

…and the smoke.

And more smoke.

Then, after nearly two hours (and who knows how many games of darts)…

…we opened the grill and found these beauties…

…spinning round and round (okay some stuff fell out, but most stayed in).

Finally we carefully removed chickens from the rotisserie, carved them, and served them up with some grilled veggies and a loaf of Acme Bread Company’s excellent green olive bread. What a delicious way to spend a day.