It's been raining heavy all weekend but Sunday was looking to be a 10% chance of rain. Good enough for me, so I made up a slightly tweaked spice rub. This time I toned back the oregano, added ginger powder and used Garlic Salt instead of Salt. I did this because I was out of Garlic powder. To me, I thought the rub was nice. It didn't get in the way of the flavour of the chicken and gave the skin a nice bark. My wife wasn't as impressed. She called it bland and said it didn't really add much to it. She preferred last week's rub. I'm guessing toning back the oregano, also toned back the flavour for her.

The only change to this cook, I used the Hickory Pellets in my smoke box. The smoke box only has one (1) hole in it and I was wondering if that was enough to impart any of it's flavour. During the cook, there was definitely a mild hickory smell to the smoke coming out of the weber. As to whether it did anything to the chicken, if it did, it was really mild and most likely helped to mask the charcoal briquette flavour. At the end, only about 1/3 of the pellets had broken down/had a black look to them. I figured, I'll use them again next cook and see what happens.

It's all about trial and error (less trial than error hopefully) in the BBQ world. It's also fun to try new things. I think I'll use some honey or sugar in my next rub to add some sweetness. The only bad thing that happened during the cook, I took the veggies off too early and the larger potatoes weren't cooked all the way through. The small ones were awesome though; cooked with my garlic and fresh rosemary butter. Anyway, I'll know better next time.

I had a bunch of major goals for my cook today. Number 1, it was to be cooked by indirect heat not over the coals in alfoil as my previous cooks have been. Number 2, I used a dry rub on the chicken. Number 3, I monitored the temperature of the inside of the chicken from the start, rather than using a potato to gauge the heat.

I think I'll have to build my own temperature gauge for the hot plate as it really is quite different from the middle of your food. I've got a spare Arduino, just need to get a thermostat and temperature probe capable of handling very high temperatures. Anyway, more on that next time.

I smoked the chicken for about 1.5 hours, flipping it at the 45 minute mark. Then when the probe was spot on with it's internal temperature of 83°C, I moved the chicken over to the coals side, so I could help brown up the skin some more. The olive oil and dry rub really helped to give the chicken a nice, crispy skin. And yes, my wife approved.

The dry rub consisted of:-

•   1 Tablespoon of Iodised Salt
•   1 Tablespoon of Ground Pepper
•   3 Teaspoons of Paprika
•   3 Teaspoons of Oregano

From the smell of the dry rub, I was a little worried the pepper might overpower the flavour, however, it didn't -- it was just right. I didn't do much to the vegies, except used my own garlic butter that I fried up in a pan prior to wrapping them in alfoil. I grabbed a handful of Serrano chillies from the backyard and put them on towards the finale of the cook. They ended up like little roasted capsicums that were packed with heat, so all and all, a nice addition.