There is a hardware store in the next town over from me, that sells used appliances and they always have a few junker's out back. Something to thing about.
When Cindy makes chicken it's usually all the same type of pieces. Like all boneless breasts, all drumsticks or all thighs. When she does a whole roasted chicken, it's stuffed with cranberry cornbread homemade stuffing.
Jon, you have to crank the temp up in the smoker/grill during the last 15 minutes of cooking to brown/char the skin. The smoke flavoring transferred to the meat happens mostly in the first 30 minutes of the cook. You may even have to pull the bird out of the smoker while you build up your fire/coals.
We are not what you would call "rural" around here. Although it is true small town living, we have a large contingent of mega-buck homes and their owners. No hardware store could get away with putting old appliances out back before someone in a Tesla would drive by, see it and call the local codes enforcement folks.
Jet powered Tesla? That's almost as silly as a camera that needs no film.I'm thinking Jet Powered Tesla!
Besides the rubberiness, which could surely be solved by 15 min char, the skin (of the one I did) absorbed way too much smoke...it was bitter.
Perhaps a milder smoking wood? When I smoke fish I use punky sugar maple because stuff like Hickory is way too strong for fish. I bet if you ask Glaciers he'll tell us they use lots of Alder for fish in Alaska. My Dad always used Apple wood. There may be an ideal wood for white meat fowl.
Could just be me. I like a subtle smoke flavor. With my grill, it's challenging to get a small amount of smoke without using Charcoal for a majority of heat. Mostly, I cook with 100% wood on the smoker grill, mostly, I use Sugar Maple. I've adapted techniques to over come the too much smoke issue with smaller chunks of meat, but with a Turkey, that's just too big for those techniques ...except that tactic that the skin is a sacrificial guard to keep too much smoke getting in the meat, which did work the one time I did that, but no crispy skin
Well on a bake or grilled chicken, I think that the skin is the best part. Turkey skin if it is golden brown and crispy is better than sex.
It's just a mortar and pestle made from stone instead of fired clay. There is yet another version that is much larger called a metate. Instead of a pestle, it has a large, long football-ish shaped rolling pin and the mortar is more of a rectangular slab that is concave to match the convex curvature of the rolling pin. I was in Monterrey on business and a fellow engineer who was from Monterrey was with me. That night we went to visit his parents at their house. Javier brought out the metate and asked if I'd ever seen one before. I said no and asked what it was. He said, "It's a Mexican blender".
I use one to grind fennel seed for my Italian sausage, spaghetti and other dishes. Have to be careful about eating seeds or nuts because of diverticulosis.
