BBQ Beer-Can Chicken on a Charcoal Grill

A classic of the barbecue circuit, barbecued beer-can chicken involves resting a whole chicken upright on a can of beer and grill-roasting it. The odd technique accomplishes two things at once: As the beer turns to steam, it flavors the interior of the chicken and keeps it moist. The smoke bathes the exterior and turns the skin crisp. Or at least that’s the idea; we have tasted too many bland, greasy beer-can chickens with not a whole lot of beer flavor. We wanted crisp-skinned, moist, beer- and smoke-flavored chicken. Here’s what we discovered:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

• Bank the coals in the grill on either side of a disposable aluminum pan. The coals will cook the chicken evenly and the pan will catch dripping fat from the chicken.
• Open the top of the can wide open with a church key to allow the greatest amount of steam to escape. The normal hole is far too small.
• Lance the chicken’s skin with a skewer to make holes from which rendering fat can escape.
• Rub the chicken liberally with a spice rub on top of and underneath the skin.
• Coat the chicken with a sweet-tart glaze towards the end of cooking to improve the chicken’s flavor and color. If applied too early, the glaze will burn.