Beer Can Chicken

While we are on the subject of cooking (baking...) with beer, I want to take a moment to share with you my new favorite way to cook a chicken.

Roasting a chicken is not difficult, but there are a couple of common issues that we all run into when doing so - drying out the breast meat and the back side not having the same deliciously crispy skin as the breast side.

I no longer have these problems. 

Because I now roast my chicken on this:

It's a beer-can roaster, and we found it sold with the barbecue gear. But it works beautifully in the oven. Simply open up a can of beer and pop it into the holder. You really only need half of the can, but I don't bother pouring any out, usually. Though if I time things right and make the sourdough beer bread on the same day, it might work out beautifully... hmm...

Anyway, once the beer can is snugly in place, just stand the chicken up over it.

I then rub the chicken with a variety of spices, usually garlic powder, salt, paprika and parsley. Sometimes I change it up a little, but those are the go-to spices. The above chicken still has a little ways to go, but by the time he (she?) was all rubbed, my hands were in no state to touch the camera.

A little drizzle of olive oil, and we're ready to go into the oven.

The only complication of roasting a chicken this was vs. the standard laying-down-in-a-roasting-pan way is that you have to remove all but the lowest rack in the oven, which means you lose oven space for side dishes. But I promise, it's worth it.

Because when it comes out of the oven...

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It's crispy everywhere.

And the meat is beautifully moist throughout.

And it tastes absolutely delicious.

I highly recommend it.

(Since there is no real recipe associated with this, I'll just give you the basics:
I preheat my oven to 375 degrees while I prepare the chicken. I always rinse the chicken inside and out and pat it dry with paper towels. Once the oven is preheated and the chicken is prepared (rubbed or sprinkled with spices and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil), simple slide it into the oven. I let it roast at 375 for the first 20-30 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350. The total cooking time, for me, is about 20 minutes per pound. I usually have a five or six pound chicken, so I usually let it roast for about 2 hours, give or take. I usually pop a few potatoes onto the rack around the roasting pan about an hour before the chicken is done, and one of my sides is taken care of. Easy peasy!)

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