Prepping the Grill

• You shouldn’t light up the barbecue and start cooking your chicken unless you’ve thoroughly cleaned and prepared the grill first. Any charred bits or dried sauce left on the grill from your last barbecue will embed itself in your chicken, compromising the taste and texture of your food. To start with a clean, fresh grill, give it a hard, dry scrub using a wire grill brush. These brushes are designed to scrape off anything left behind on the grate, so put your back into it and brush it clean. Once the grill is clean, light it up and wait for it to heat. After it does, use a pair of tongs to dip a towel in oil, and smear it on the grill. Though chicken sticks to a grill relatively easily, oiling up the grate beforehand prevents this problem.

Weighing Down the Chicken

• Depending on how you’ve cut your chicken, it may be an odd shape for cooking on a barbecue grill. A butterfly cut, for example, splits the bird down the middle, and it may not lie particularly evenly on the grate. To make sure that your chicken cooks evenly, weight it down with a brick wrapped in aluminum foil. This keeps it pressed flat against the grill. A foil-wrapped brick can also come in handy for smaller pieces, like drumsticks. You can prop chicken pieces up against the brick, preventing them from falling over while you grill their sides.

Saucing Your Bird

• Tempting as it may be to slather your chicken in barbecue sauce before you toss it on the grill, you should instead wait until the chicken has started cooking and use a barbecue brush, which gives it an even coating of sauce at just the right time. Saucing your chicken too early or too generously makes the barbecue sauce burn while the meat cooks, leaving a blackened, charred outer crust. A barbecue brush is the perfect tool for applying your barbecue sauce for two reasons. First, it allows you to sauce your bird at the right time, when the chicken is about half-done. Second, unlike utensils like spoons, it makes it easy for you to apply an even coat, rather than smothering the chicken.

Serving It Up

• With a meat thermometer and a pair of tongs, you can make sure that your chicken is ready to eat and safely transfer it from the grill to the plate. Use your tongs to grip your chicken and move it to a serving platter or cutting board, then use an instant-read meat thermometer to take your chicken’s temperature. Cutting open the chicken to gauge its doneness visually makes it release its juices, and if you have to put it back on the grill after cutting it open, it will dry out quickly. Instead, stick your meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat, and if it reads at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit, you’re good to go.