Now, when I start cooking something on the grill, I look at it in two stages: The preparation and the cooking. I know what you all are thinking...."Yeah yeah yeah, we all have to prepare and then cook, you idiot!" Well, with grilling it's different, because unlike cooking in the kitchen, where preparation consists of portioning out all the ingredients, preparation for grilling is where you get the meat ready to cook. I try to make this first stage last at least 12 hours, but preferably 24. The preparation is where you infuse the meat with 90% of the flavors that you will be enjoying when you eat, by using a dry rub, marinade, or a brine. I have found that the latter is best for poultry, while marinades and dry rubs are best for beef or pork. I can't stress how important these steps are for grilling. I could go on forever about just this step, and what goes into it, and I probably will further on down the road, but for now, lets get on with the cooking.
In this case I will be using a brine, since I'll be cooking beer can chicken. First off, what is a brine? Well, simply put, it is a salt water solution. Brines have been used for hundreds of millions of years by grillers all over the world. The point of a brine is to keep meat moist throughout the cooking process. It works by hydrating the meat through osmosis. If you want a more technical answer, go to this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brining Basically for my purpose, brining
meat makes it juicer. It all sounds very technical, but making a brine is actually really easy. My standard recipe for a brine is 1/2 cup of kosher salt to 5 cups of water. The ratio is 10:1 water to salt. Now if you remember your high school c
hemistry, you can't put too much salt in the water because eventually it will become saturated, and the water won't absorb the salt, so that's why I like to stick to that ratio of 10:1 or 1/2 cup of salt to 5 cups of water. Next, simply boil the salt into the water, and throw in some bay leaves, one chopped onion, as much garlic as you want, and some peppercorns. Make sure to bring the salt water solution to a boil first, then take it off the heat, let it cool a bit, and then throw in all the other ingredients. Once everything is in there, let the water cool to room temperature before you put the chicken in. Obviously you don't want to cook the chicken in the boiling hot brine. Finally, 
make sure the chicken is surrounded by the onions, garlic, peppercorns 
and bay leaves. If it is not completely submerged by the brine, just throw a couple cups or water in the container until it is submerged. Once you have the chicken COMPLETELY SUBMERGED, throw it in the fridge overnight. Mine is currently sitting in the fridge, so I'll have to continue the rest of this post tomorrow when I actually cook the bird. Until then, happy grilling!Standard Brine:
1/2 Cup of Kosher Salt boiled into 5 cups of water. 10:1 ratio of water to salt
one chopped onion
one whole garlic
bay leaves and peppercorn to taste
