What's on the Grill #2

Tonight was nice...sorta. Lately, I have had a lot going on, so with the warm weather and some free time, I was looking forward to an evening of grilling. Tonight was a double approach. I had to make pizzas for tomorrow, while cooking dinner for tonight. I figured the easiest thing to do was a whole chicken. I also figured this would be a great opportunity to test out the rotisserie on my Weber S-650.

The 650 is so big, that I could fit either two whole chickens or a turkey. Nice! I was anxious to try out the rotisserie because it gave me an excuse to the use the infrared burner. After prepping the chicken with a basic rub of salt, pepper and paprika, I stuffed the cavity with garlic and a few sprigs of rosemary.

Now I need to interject here. One of the nicest additions of the evening was my beer. I grabbed my first six pack of Circus Boy from the Magic Hat Brewing Company. It was a nice crisp Hefeweizen. My idea of the perfect summer beer.

Fast forward an hour and a half. I threw some corn on the kettle along with some artichoke hearts. As a side, I love artichokes, but I have yet to grill artichokes the way I like them...meaning steamed. I also had some left over pizza dough, so I decided to make a mini-feta & sage pizza. It was quite the unusual grouping.

Now the melancholy part of the evening was how good the chicken was. Now you might ask, "why is that melancholy?" Well, I am a charcoal purist. Historically, I have used gas for speed and space. There is nothing quite like a chicken on the kettle standing proud, with a can of nondescript American lager perforating its rectum. The results, although humiliating to the bird, were delectable....until tonight. The 650 bird was unbelievable. Moist, tender, sweet and warm. I was utterly shocked at the difference. I have cooked chickens for years and tonight was probably one of the best. Funny thing is, I felt my heat was too high. I was prepared for a dried out chicken...but wasn't going to complain because I was trying to do three other things at the same time. Boy, was I wrong.

Of course after tonight, I am dying to try duck, hens and maybe a turkey. All of course served with a generous helping of Magic Hat.