I cook my chickens to 160... which is the new standard cooked temp for bird (old temp was 180). I use a temp starting at 120 for more smoke and finish about 160-180. Smoke sticks far better to cold and cool meat, and once it gets warm the smoke does not stick nearly as much. I rarely cook anything above 250. I do not use foil, except for wrapping corn on the cob and meat if I want to make it more stringy for the likes of pulled pork. Foil will actually reflect the heat back in and you will tend to boil, or spike the heat in there and actually lose more moisture (and/or meat texture) using it. Also all you really have to do is let the meat rest for 10-15 minutes to unbind the proteins that make seared meat tough, but that is more for meats grilled on high heat (like flame broiling steaks and chops at 400+).
Low temp cooking is better and in my view the bane of all of these pellet grills with temp controllers that start around 225 degrees. That is way too high a temp for making smoked meats, fish, and jerky. Many of us wind up using the P level controller on the Ortech controllers to get lower smoking temps on Traeger grills. For that reason Traeger does not put the P controller knob on their controllers from Ortech, and the P switches are either on the back or recessed on the front (need a screwdriver to set them). A Traeger rep says that they fear that users will set the P control too low and cause the fire to go out and then the pellets will mound up unburned and cause a flare-up when the igniter is turned on again. Ortech had has their own controller available direct (on their Ebay site) for Traeger and Brinkmann that had a P control knob on the front, and they let users control the P setting for smoke mode, as well as between active cycles in the highter temp ranges. That controller also starts at 180, which is still too high for my likes, but better than 225. I am designing a controller based on P timing only, that allows for controlling the on and off cycle of the pellet auger, and thus allowing for better temp precision, and low temp control.
I cooked a pork roast last night, and as an afterthought tossed in a half chicken that I have frozen and thawed out. Damn if the chicken was not better than the pork! I did not expect that. The pork was good, but... No foil on either, smoked on low (120) for an hour, flipped meat, smoked at 160-175 for 2 more hours, flipping back after an hour. Rubbed with garlic, salt, ginger, pow. worst., black pepper, onion and... that was it. Tasty good. Smoked with half alder and half apple. Good chefs have nothing to hide, or to keep a secret.
Oh, and of the Harold McGee books, his best is: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Mine are not pink but my husband started to mark his tools for construction sites with pink spray paint for easy ID - a color rarely used
