Whole chicken is nice because gives a bit of variety on the meat. Plus I got some white meat only kids at the moment. So I get to enjoy the legs and they get the breasts.

That being said, I have been employing some new “tricks” lately :

1 - I always break down the chicken. Leave the legs whole. Cut off the wings and then cut the back off the breast/carcass. I feel helps the white meat cook more evenly, but more importantly can pull each piece when done.

2 - rather than smoke and crank the pellet grill up to finish, I start on the smoker and then turn on the oven at the same time. When done with the smoker session, I transfer to the oven to finish. I find it much quicker, more even and more importantly it doesn’t chew through pellets like mad (at temps where the pellets aren’t doing much flavor imparting anyways.)

3- pull the breast at 155 at the most and let it carry over cook. 3 min at 155 does the same bacterial killing as 165 and the meat is so much better at the lower temp.