A few weeks back, we got your grills cleaned up and ready for summer cooking. This week, we're going to talk about that most classic of barbecued meats: chicken.

Now, before you start throwing briquets at your screen, I didn't say "favorite." Every person with a grill has their own favorite barbecuing object, but when you head to the park or the beach and see a big barbecue in progress, chicken is just about always one of the meats on the grill. It's cheap, especially if you stick with leg quarters, and relatively forgiving of variances in temperature.

While your charcoal is getting good and hot, we need to talk a bit about terminology. While barbecuing may usually take place ON a grill, it's not the same as grilling. TRUE barbecuing is just a step removed from smoking, the difference being that the meat is directly over the smoldering coals, rather than offset.

In common parlance, however, in my opinion, it's appropriate to refer to any sort of slow cooking over hot coals as barbecuing, especially when it applies to poultry. If you want to grill chicken, you use hot, fresh coals and cook it fairly quickly. This method is usually only good for boneless or very small pieces, such as quail. Try to grill a fat leg quarter and you'll end up with carbon-coated raw chicken.

If you want to make the next person bugging you about what's barbecue and what isn't go away, use Alton Brown's little ditty: "I fired up my barbecue to barbecue some ribs for the church barbecue." All three usages are correct, and all three have completely different meanings. So there.

The trick to great barbecued chicken lies in heat control. Unless you're a nearly perfect judge of coals and what they'll be like an hour from now, this requires a grill with a lid, preferably with top and bottom vents.

My everyday grill is a Sunbeam patio grill with a relatively shallow firebox but a large surface area. I can fit nine to 10 leg quarters on it easily, with room between them for the smoke to filter around. It's got slit vents at the bottom edge of the firebox and the standard dial-type top vent.

I light a chimney-starter full of charcoal and, when it's hot, dump it into the grill and add an equivalent amount of unlit charcoal directly on top of the hot coals. Give the added charcoal five minutes to just begin to catch, then put the bird on the grill.

WAIT! We haven't talked seasoning yet, have we? There's a darned good reason for that. There are, at last count, more different ways to season poultry than there are grains of sand stuck in my truck upholstery after a beach barbecue. My seasoning depends on my mood and who I'm feeding. I've recently become infatuated with a Mexican marinade/sauce called adobo. It's a chile/herb/vinegar (or citrus juice) concoction that penetrates and seasons chicken to such an extent that barbecue sauce really isn't necessary.

You can even put your bird on unseasoned and let the smoke do the talking. Here in North Carolina, we are blessed with an abundance of different woods, and all of them lend their own special flavors to the meat. I'm a straight oak/maple mix man, myself, but feel free to experiment with whatever's available in your area.

Now, back to the grill. You want the coals to be hot enough that a handful of wood chips tossed on them will begin to smoke (you'll get the knack of lifting a corner of the grill and tossing the wood), but not so hot that they ignite. Basically, open the lid, toss on your chips, and wait until they begin to smoke. Then close the lid and use the top vent to regulate your airflow until you have a steady stream of smoke coming out.

If you control your heat properly, you can begin basting immediately, but I usually wait until the chicken's almost done. In my experience, the sauce can form a sort of shell that keeps the delicate smoke flavors from wafting all the way through to the bone.

When is the meat done? You can use your probe thermometer to check the meat temperature, or wait for the meat to begin pulling away from the bone on the drumsticks. I prefer the thermometer method myself, as there's nothing more embarrassing to me than serving raw chicken to guests.

Got a comment? Question? Recipe to share? Drop me a line anytime!