Beer Butt Chicken ---- Part 2

It was a lot easier to get the chicken off the grill than I thought it would be. I took the tongs, and put them under each leg, and lifted it into the casserole dish. I used the same technique to extricate the beer and holder and move the chicken to the plate.

I think that I put a little to much rub on part of this one, it's a little to crispy and black :( But underneath..........mmmmmmmm, chickeny goodnes! All the meat is nice and juicy. I had some of the skin form the other side that was not overdone, and it was scrumptious.

For next time, I'll turn the heat down a bit. It seemed to cook a little faster than I thought it would. I'll also make sure to rotate it so the skin cooks a little more evenly.

Beer Butt Chicken ---- Part 1

April 19th, a day that will live on in grilling infamy. I am trying my first Beer Butt Chicken today!

Basically, its a chicken that is grilled vertically, with a half full can of beer inserted in it's rear cavity. The beer is supposed to help keep the chicken nice and moist on the inside and make the skin crispy. Whether this happens with my chicken, designated Chicken X-1 (for experimental chicken #1) remains to be seen.

The ingredients are pretty simple
* Beer in a can. I used regular Leinenkugels
* A whole chicken
* Poultry rub. I used Famous Dave's, as that's what was around the house.

To prepare the bird,

1) make sure there is vertical clearance in your grill for the chicken.
2)Set your grill up for indirect cooking. My grill is gas, so I turned one burner on.
3) Open the beer and drink 1/2 of it while congratulating yourself for having the forethought to make this dish
4) Using a can opener punch some additional holes in the beer can. Add some of the rub to the beer.
5) Rinse the chicken inside and out with cold water. Remove the neck, giblets, and any fat at either opening
6) Cover the chicken inside and out with the rub.
7) At the grill, place the can of beer up the back end of the chicken, and place over the burner that is not running. I bought a chicken/can holder at Home Depot for abou $4 or so. This provides a base with legs to put the can in. Then this goes in the chicken, and makes it much more stable.
8)It should cook for anywhere from 1-2 hours. I'm planning on checking mine at about an hour and a half. The temp in the thigh should be more than 180.

Stay Tuned

Hitchin a ride - Telescope style

My new to me Orion ST80-a finally has a mount to ride on. I've had this things for two monnths, so it's been itchin to get out of it's case.

Orion shipped the scope with the mounting rings bolted onto a small dovetail plate. This works slicker than bug s$$# if your tripod/mount has a dovetail receprtor. Unfortunately, my original scope, an Orion Astroview 6, does not have this receptor. I called Orion to see if there was a way to attach theST80 to this mount. They said no.

There are some on the net that sell an adaptor that would do the trick, but they also cost $100+, so that was not going to be happening anytime soon.

There is a plan B though.... In the middle of the dovetail for the ST80, there's a threaded hole than can be used to attach the dovetail to a photo tripod with a 1/4*20 bolt .So what if I could attach a bolt like that the Astroview mount?

The plan I came up with was this, an adapter plate made of 1*2 piece of wood, with two bolts holding it to the head of the mount, and a 1/4*20 bolt sticking out of the middle attach the dovetail plate. My brother helped me with the fabrication (Thanks Tony!)

Since the mount is of a Japaneese design, the measurements are metric.

We cut the wood to length of 18cm. We then drilled the holes for mouting the adapter plate to the mount head. The first hole was 1.5 cm fron the end of the adapter. The second hole was drilled 15 cm from the first hole. The hole for the dovetail plate mounting bolt was drilled in the middle. The head of the mount has two braces for the stock tube rings. The space between these is slightly narrower than the width of the adaptor plate. We ended up take a router to one side to knock down the corners. This helped the adapter fit flat against the mount head.

It looks pretty good, once it is all together. I'm planning on painting the adapter and mounting hardware flat black, to reduce stray light, and make the adapter a little more moisture resistant.




The finished prooduct