re: beer can/beer butt chicken

i dont know what to tell you man, and i'm certainly not calling you a liar. but the fact remains that when beer boils, the vapor from the water in the beer is 100% H2O, and contains zero crab boil

liquid crab boil is:

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A delicious blend of the essential oils of cayenne pepper, bay leaves, cloves, black pepper, thyme and marjoram.

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oil does not change phase from liquid to vapor at 212 deg. you'd be better off spraying the inside of the chicken with crab boil before you cook it, if thats the flavor you want

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i dont know what to tell you man, and i'm certainly not calling you a liar. but the fact remains that when beer boils, the vapor from the water in the beer is 100% H2O, and contains zero crab boil

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However, alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, so a beer is going to have some of the alcohol and associated flavors boil off prior to the water. Yes, the vapor from the water in the beer is 100% H2O, but beer isn't 100% water. It's more like 90-95%, depending on the beer used.

So, I would think that in order to make any bit of difference, you'd want to use a stronger beer with more alcohol and more dissolved sugars.

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oil does not change phase from liquid to vapor at 212 deg. you'd be better off spraying the inside of the chicken with crab boil before you cook it, if thats the flavor you want

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This makes sense.

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and associated flavors boil off prior to the water

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Explain. What flavors bind to the ETOH for vapor purposes?

i would assume without checking that some of the essential oils in crab boil are soluble in alcohol, so a very small amount of those oils could be present in alcohol vapor. i honestly do not know

as you said, beet is almost all water though, so the amount of alcohol actually vaporizing is very very small. a worthwile experiment might be to fill the beer can halfway up with everclear, and then add liquid crab boil to that

I think I'm going to cook a beer can chicken on Thursday and see what I discover...

To nobody in particular,

To get steam you would have to bring water to a boil. To bring beer to a boil, the temp inside the can would have to reach 212 degrees. Keep in mind this beer is inside a can that is inside a chicken.

So for the beer to reach 212 degrees, the chicken around it would have to reach 212 degrees. Seeing as how breast meat is considered done at 160 degrees, you would have some very dry chicken if you brought the beer to a boil.

I've read where plugging the bird with a can actually hurts the cook. Air can circulate inside the cavity as easily so the bird cooks unevenly.

The biggest benefit of the beer can chicken is that by standing it up you get more circulation of heat to cook it a little more evenly. I would recommend using the beer stand with nothing in it. Or spatchcock like I mentioned earlier.

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I don't get the hate for drunk chicken. You can overcook and still not dry out. Saying the beer won't boil... have you ever tried? The beer can may be insulated on the sides but the bottom of the thin aluminum can is sitting directly over the heat source.

2 hours on my electric smoker and the skin is nice golden brown, crisp and the meat is falling off the bone with juice still running out. To each their own but i will still continue to shove a bud light up a chickens arse and cook it

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This

That was always a favorite deer camp meal. Get the coals nice and cooked down and throw the chicken on the pit before going to the stand in the evening. Get back right after dark and it was ready to go

Smother down some potatoes with butter,onion, garlic, salt/pepper and you ate like a king.