Whole Smoked Chicken

A whole chicken is brined with aromatic herbs, lemon, garlic, and spices for a day, then smoked until juicy and golden. The result is tender, flavorful poultry with crisp skin and deep smoky notes—perfect for carving and sharing.

Total time: 26 h 30 min • Active: 2 h 15 min • Inactive: 24 h 15 min

Cooking feedback100% would make again (1)Cook notes summary and your notes

Cook Notes Summary

The chicken was successful overall and the cook would make it again, with the main positives being a simple brine workaround and a fast cook on a smaller bird that finished in about an hour. The main issues were ingredient substitutions and shortages rather than flavor or texture problems, with the brine adapted using powdered garlic, lemon powder, and some ground pepper in place of whole peppercorns. Next time, the recipe could be followed more closely for the brine, but the timing should still be adjusted to the chicken’s size since a smaller bird cooked much faster.

Generated from private cooking notes.

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Ingredients

1 ea lemon
5 ea garlic
1.968 l water
2.5 oz kosher salt
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
4 lbs chicken
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp dried italian herbs seasoning

Timeline

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Whole Smoked Chicken

T-26:30:00

T-26:25:00

T-26:17:00

T-25:52:00

T-02:00:00

T-01:52:00

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T-15:00

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Prepare the flavoring ingredients: Quarter the lemon and smash the garlic cloves.

Dissolve salt and extract flavors for the brine: Bring 1 quart of the water, kosher salt, dried thyme, dried rosemary, quartered lemon, whole black peppercorns, and smashed garlic to a boil. Stir until salt dissolves and flavors infuse.

Add the remaining water to the boiled brine and cool to room temperature.

Fully submerge the chicken, breast side down, in the cooled brine and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Preheat pellet grill to 325°F (163°C).

Remove the chicken from the brine and pat dry with paper towels.

Rub chicken all over with olive oil and coat with dried Italian herbs seasoning.

Smoke/grill the seasoned chicken in the preheated pellet grill until it reaches 165°F (74°C) internal temperature, about 90 minutes.

Rest the smoked chicken under foil for 15 minutes before carving and serving.

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Whole Smoked Chicken

Cook Notes Summary

Ingredients

Timeline

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