Combine the kosher salt, sugar, bay leaves, pepper and chopped dehydrated onion into the 3 gallons of water. Soak the chickens in the refrigerator overnight.
Get smoker heating to 325. I have an offset barrel smoker that I modified to use a water bath. I did not add water to the pan because I was worried that might make the skin rubbery.
Rinse chicken in cold water and pat dry.
Cut the orange and lemon into 1/8 wedges.
Stuff each chicken with half an orange, half a lemon, 1 sprig rosemary and 2 sprigs of tarragon.
Cover all sides of the chickens with the AP rub and BBQ chicken rub.
Place the chickens in the smoker breast side down. I'm using a charcoal, maple wood and peach wood combination. I have an abundance of maples on my property which gives a nice sweet smoke and used peach chips that I bought as another sweet smoke to balance the charcoal.
After 1 hour check the temp of the white and dark meat. You're looking for 165 in the white and 175 in the dark. With my smoker I wasnt there, about 2 hours or so away.
Brush the skin with oil and rotate in the smoker to ensure an even cook. You can use any oil you like, olive would give it a nice fruity flavor. I used canola for the neutral flavor plus it's what I had on hand, next time I will try peanut oil because it's amazing!
After one more hour rotate the chickens and check the skins to see if they need oiled again.
When the temps are good pull the chickens and let rest about half an hour before carving.
The skins on my chickens cracked and started to pull away. I think 325 was too hot. My goal was for them to only cook for 2 hours but the dark meat was not temping. I contemplated tenting with foil to protect the skin but wasn't sure what it would do to the texture. Next time I'll stick with my original temp of 275 and cook longer brushing multiple times with peanut oil... it tastes so amazing so I'm not at all disappointed, plus I get to keep cooking this recipe over and over to get it right!
