This is one of my favorites to grill. Juicy chicken with a nice coating of caramelized barbecue sauce always hits the spot. I like this recipe better on charcoal, so I fired up the good old Weber kettle. A half chimney of briquettes is just about right, let those ignite for about 20-30 minutes.
While the coals are heating, I prepped the chicken. I like my BBQ chicken with the bones. This particular night I just grilled legs because they’re easy to eat, and because Costco had 6 packages of 5 frozen drumsticks each for something like $7. It’s great to pull a package out of the freezer whenever we feel like it. After the drumsticks were thawed, I coated them with a dry rub. Any kind of barbecue dry rub works. I had some Meathead’s Memphis Dust pre-mixed on hand, so I just used that.
Let that rub sit until the coals are hot. Then dump the coals out onto half of the grill, leaving the other half empty. You’re creating two zones of heat – hot and cool. We’ll start off on the “cool” side.
Put the chicken on the side without coals. That way they get the radiant heat which will cook the meat all the way through, but they won’t burn up like they would if they were directly over the coals. Leave the chicken on the cool side for 15-20 minutes, then flip the pieces over for another 15-20. That should just about get you up to temperature.
Next step is to move the chicken to the direct heat side and brush on some barbecue sauce. I used Sweet Baby Ray’s because I like the sweetness and it caramelizes well. Brush it on the top of the chicken, then let it cook for a couple minutes. I like to brush all four “sides” of a drumstick. So I do about two minutes, rotate 90 degrees, do another two minutes, and so on until the chicken skin is crispy and the sauce is sticky.
Not a bad result. A little charred, but still delicious.
My grilling beer was a Double Dry-Hopped Cloud City from Narrow Gauge Brewing. Picked this up on a recent trip to St. Louis, and it was a very tasty, hazy IPA. Glad to get in on the haze craze.
