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Beer Butt Chicken on a Bubba Keg Grill

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I figured I would do Beer Butt chicken on a Bubba Keg Grill since I just got the grill, and I love to cook chicken like this. Since my results varied from my norm, I will probably be updating this page as I fine tune the procedure. I definitely didn't get the same results I got on my Char-griller with side fire box, or even my gas grill. So let's see what I did.

Let's start by having a look at my new bubba keg grill

Bubba Keg Grill

I decided to keep it inside my screened in deck. Today, it was raining outside, but I didn't have to worry. This grill doesn't get hot at all when doing a low and slow cook. Even when it's at the top end, I can put my hand on it for 5-6 seconds before I feel the heat coming through.

Bubba Keg Open Lid

I need to reconfigure my deck, but for today, I'll get through this as is.

Prepping my Beer Butt Chicken on a Bubba Keg Grill

So, I started by brining my chicken in a solution of about 1 cup of Kosher salt to a gallon of water. I normally brine them overnight, but I got a late start and only had about 6 hours to do it. I've had success not brining my beer can chickens, so not sure how much of a difference it makes.

Next, I made a rub to apply to the chicken. I use a rub I found on The Virtual Weber Bullet site. It's called "Wild Willy's Number One-derful Rub" and I use it all the time. It's awesome. The quantities below should be enough for 2 chickens. If you want to make more, check out the VWB site where he also has the bulk recipe.

6 Tablespoons paprika
2 Tablespoons ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon chili powder
1 Tablespoon granulated garlic
1 Tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon cayenne

Once I've mixed this together, and when the chicken is done brining, I apply the rub. Sometimes I sprinkle it on with my fingers, this time I used a spice shaker. I think this is a little more efficient.

Beer Butt Chicken With Rub On

This was the first time cooking low and slow, or cooking beer butt chicken on the Bubba Keg Grill , so I proceeded carefully. Once you get these up to a high temperature, it's difficult to get them back down. They are very good at retaining heat.

Unlike my Char-griller, I wasn't going to be using the better part of a bag of charcoal briquettes to do this cook. I've always gotten good results with the Chargriller, but it just uses too much fuel and is so hot that I can't use it in my screened in deck. My son also likes to touch things!

Bubba Keg with a full load of lump charcoal

Yes, that's all I used. And notice that you only use lump charcoal. It is very efficient and leaves very little ash behind. It's not going to cost much to cook beer butt chicken on a bubba keg grill!

I used a fire stick starter to get this going. I accidently dropped 2 in there. Totally unnecessary and since you need to wait until the burn up, the more you put in the longer you wait.

Lighting the Bubba Keg Grill

Those fire sticks generate a lot of smoke so I may be looking for an alternative.

Bubba Keg Smoke

I started out with the top and bottom vents half-open. The fire sticks and lighting process will ramp the temp up, but it will come back down since it's not the real air temp being read. But, you still need to be careful. When it got to 400 F, I opened the lid, for a second for a peak, then I closed the bottom vent to a crack (less than 1) and the top vent to position 1.

The temperature started to stabilize around 250, which is what I was shooting for. I'm going to try cooking beer butt chicken on a Bubba Keg grill at different temperatures in the future to see which works best.

Bubba Keg at 250

I'm sure I will re-evaluate my process, but at this point, I needed to get my Big Green Egg plate setter in there to diffuse the heat. FYI, a BGE plate setter for a large BGE (not the XL) works perfectly. I place it in the legs up position so I could get a drip pan below the cooking grate.

Platesetter

I placed a roasting pan on the plate setter and then sat the cast iron cooking grate on the plate setter. Everything fit perfectly as you can see below. I decided to spend $45 on the BGE plate setter because I intend to use it a lot and the only other option was to use the upper grate, which limits what I can do with it.

I understand the manufacturer is working on a kit for indirect cooking, but I don't expect to see anything until later in 2009. I didn't want to cook beer butt chicken on a Bubba Keg grill with direct heat.

Bubba Keg Platesetter

Let's Cook Beer Butt Chicken on a Bubba Keg Grill

Before I got the plate setter and cooking grate in place, I took some apple wood chips and sprinkled them on the lit coals. The cooking guide recommends that you soak them in water. Normally, I don't buy into soaking chunks, but chips definitely absorb more water so I decided to do it.

A lit Bubba Keg Grill

With all of the vents nearly shut down, you can see that the coals aren't burning out of control. The Bubba Keg is so well insulated that they don't need to be since it retains a lot of heat. Don't open it if you don't have to or you'll lose that heat.

Now that everything is in place, I put the chick on the cooking grate and shut the lid. Time to start cooking beer butt chicken on a Bubba Keg grill.

Beer Butt Chicken on a Bubba Keg Grill

Again, I targeted 250 F for my cooking temperature. At this temperature, it's normally taken about 3 hours on my Chargriller. If you follow the recipe for the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker at that temperature, it could take up to 4 hours.

After 2 hours, I opened the lid and drizzled some apple juice over the chicken. I don't have a spray bottle, so I used one of those new basting brushes, the ones that are some sort of synthetic material. It worked pretty well but I will be getting a new spray bottle soon.

After 3 hours, I checked the temp. It was just over 140 F in the breast. It was weird, though, because the breast seemed tough when I inserted the thermometer. Anyway, I added some corn on the cob that I had been soaking in water to the mix.

Beer Butt Chicken With Corn On The Cob

Beer Butt Chicken on a Bubba Keg Grill Results

After 4 hours, the breast barely reached 160 F. I was totally baffled. The corn was done perfectly. The breast seemed tough, and so did the legs. So I took everything off and shut the Bubba Keg Grill down by closing the vents (there was fuel left over).

My wife and I like to eat while we're carving because we're basically vultures. But we were concerned that this chicken had been overcooked somehow. As I cut into the breast, I was pleasantly surprised. It was juicy and absolutely mouth watering!

I may have screwed up my beer butt chicken on a Bubba Keg Grill

Once I got that carved up, I tackled the dark meat. Every other time that I've done a beer can chicken the legs have just about fallen off. This time, it seemed as though rigor mortis had set in. The dark meat was over cooked!

I am still baffled by this, but I'm starting to wonder if I made a terrible mistake. Not in buying the Bubba Keg grill. It's that I added water to the drip pan. I have this strange feeling that maybe the water boiled and cooked the bottom of the chicken too quickly.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that this is what happened. Maybe water and the Bubba Keg just don't mix like they do in other smokers. I think I'm going to eliminate the pan completely since the plate setter is self cleaning anyway. I'll let you all know how it works out next time.

I have a little more to learn about cooking beer butt chicken on a Bubba Keg Grill .