Pre-Culinary: GUEST POST!!!: Smoked Chicken and Brisket

Big moment for the Pre-Culinary... a GUEST POST!!! Yes Alex J. Dyzenahus has not only provided a recipe for a dish that he made but its a smoked meat dish (note: smokers are awesome!).

Highlights:
In this recipe there is not only smoked chicken and brisket but also a homemade BBQ sauce. Alex's recipe description is as follows:

SMOKED CHICKEN!
2 four pound chickens

A Brine to Soak Chicken #1:
3.5 quarters of water
2 cups of Guinness
Bring to boil and then add .75 cup of brown sugar and salt. Allow to cool for a while. Soak chicken in brine for 3-4 hours. Before putting it in the smoker, dry it down and let sit for at least 30 minutes, then rub Guinness on it and brown sugar.

A Dry Rub for Chicken #2:
The usual suspects - mix in salt, pepper, garlic, onion, fennel, cayenne and chili powder, maybe cumin as well. Rubbed some oil on the chicken and then the dry rub.

Smoke both chickens at 225 degrees for 4 hours.

Brisket
Used a dry rub like for the chicken... mostly the same ingredients... added more garlic and cumin to this one. It was hotter than usual. Let it sit for 45 minutes and the rub really got in there. Let it smoke for 4.5 hours.

Homemade BBQ Sauce
Equal parts ketchup and applesauce. Threw in some apple cinnamon syrup, honey and then garlic, pepper and salt. Threw in some mustard for taste and worcestershire sauce and soy sauce for color. Then franks red hot plus brown sugar, which thickens it up. It was very sweet and then had a nice hotness at the end.

The dinner was completed with 2 smoked sweet potatoes, just with some olive oil rubbed on it

Picture 1: The Smoker