Smoked Whole Chicken with a Bacon Blanket

If there is any way to make a whole smoked chicken any better... it might be, to add a blanket of bacon to it!  I know what you're thinking, a bacon blanket will make anything better... and I really have no argument for that because I agree 100%.

But I digress, and as for the smoked chicken, it's a pretty standard affair.  I start by giving it a good dry rub of some spices.  The spices tend to vary from time to time, depending if I have left over blends, etc., but for this chicken, I use my BBQ rub (I won't share the measurements, but I will tell you what I put in it*) after I give it a good coat of rub, I then hit it with some "Tony's" creole seasoning, then let it sit for a few minutes while I fire up the grill/ smoker.

*Basic BBQ Rub (this is a very basic rub, that I am constantly changing, but these ingredients are all standard in all of my rubs)
brown sugar
kosher salt
garlic powder
paprika
ground onion
ground mustard
celery salt
ground black pepper

Once the grill is ready, I put a pan of liquids underneath where the chicken will be (and this pan can consist of anything you want, beer, soda, water, broth... anything you want to flavor your meat with).  Then I place the chicken on the grill, add wood, cover, and let it smoke.

This chicken smoked for about 5 hours total, and around the 3 hour mark, I added the bacon blanket.

Before I added it, I baste the chicken with the juices that were underneath.  {insert drooling here}  and then once the chicken was covered, I let it smoke a few more hours. The process involved rotating the chicken, basting, adding more wood, adding more coals, etc. occasionally.  The tricky part about smoking meat, is you have to pay attention to the needs, how hot is your grill, how much smoke should you have, is the meat cooking evenly, is it drying out... The more you smoke things, the more attuned you get to these issues.

Some people don't think it's worth the time and energy to smoke things on the grill, but for anyone who has ever tried it... they will tell you the results are worth it.