Hazelnut Smoked Half Chicken

MAK’s All-Star Hazelnut Blend Barbecue Pellets are different than all the others.  They start with select Northwest Hazelnut (Filbert) wood, then add fruit and other flavor woods to create a one-of-a-kind, mouth-watering, 100% all natural hardwood blend of pellets which compliment any type of food cooked on your pellet grill.

Decided to test the flavor profiles of these Hazelnut Blend BBQ Pellets on a variety of meats starting with Chicken.  Picked up some always fresh, never frozen Foster Farms Chickens at Costco for $1.09/lb.  A great price in today’s economy!!  Trimmed and cut the chickens in half saving the livers and hearts to sauté for the Chef !

Rubbed Annie’s Roasted Garlic EVOO and Jans Dry Rub under and on the Chicken skin.  Applying the seasonings under the skin really enhances the flavor of chicken and gives you the option of not eating the skin without having to sacrifice the flavor profiles that the rubs provide.

Vacuumed sealed 3 pre-seasoned half chickens and froze them for future use.  Wrapped the last half chicken with plastic wrap and refrigerated the chicken for 3 hours allowing the EVOO and rub to perform their magic.

Set and Pre-heated the MAK 2 Star General Wood Pellet BBQ Smoker-Grill to 180ºF which is the SMOKE Setpoint using Hazelnut Blend Pellets.  As always I highly recommend the use of a digital meat temperature probe.  All meats needs to be cooked to their respective Internal Temperatures (IT).  Chicken Breasts need to be taken to at least 165ºF and the Leg/Thighs (dark meat) to 180ºF.

Smoked the Chicken half for 2 hours at which time the breast was at 118ºF.  Bumped the temperature of the MAK 2 Star to 325ºF to finish the cook.  Removed the Chicken when the breast IT reached 170ºF (my personal preference) and rested the Chicken under a foil tent for 20 minutes.

The Money $Shot$ … Hazelnut Smoked Chicken Breast served with Chicken Rice-a-Roni and steamed Broccoli …  The chicken flavor profiles were reminiscent of a blend of Walnut and Cherry.  Hard to put a handle on it but definitely very pleasing results!!