1st Huli-Hull Chicken Wings - Epic Fail

[budbrew2]

Looking for help in understanding what I did wrong. I made Huli-Huli chicken for the first time today & decided to use wings. I made the marinade per Meathead’s recipe and marinaded the wings for about 8 hours. Fired up the WSM, got the temp in the low 300s (per my Chef Alarm w/grill probe) and put the wings on. After about 25-30 min I went to flip the wings and discovered the skin was "dissolving" (the skin was super soft and delicate.) Each time I grabbed a wing, my silicone tongs cut right thru the skin. I had the skin pull off several wings and had two wings slip out of the tongs when the skin let go. Left them on the smoker about 15 min longer and then x-fered them to the gas grill to try and crip them up. After a couple minutes on ther grill, I tried to flip them and any skin that was left fell apart or stuck to the grates. ( I did oil the grates before putting on the wings.)

Needless to say, these are the most pathetic looking wings I have ever made. Ther flavor was ok, but wasn’t what I expected based on the comments others who have made Huli-Huli chicken. In my opinion, they were not overcooked, as the meat was moist, did not fall off the bone, there was still a little pink around some of the bones and the joints were still tight.

I’m assuming there is a high acid content in the pineapple juice, and when added to the rice vinegar and other ingredients, it caused the skin to break down, but I’m just randomly guessing. Even though the recipe said you can leave the chicken in the marinade for up to 24 hours, could the timeline be different for wings?

I would like to try it again, but only if anyone can help me figure out my mistake. Thank you in advance for your insights. Have a great day!

[HouseHomey]

You got it. Also the sugar made it stick too! The normal recipe uses large (1/2 , spatchcocked or 1/4s) so there is a big difference there.

I would not marinade the wings and glaze them towrds the end before you pull it. Remember wet is the enemy of crisp so by soaking the wings in all that liquid for that length of time in all that sugar, salt and acid you were being hard on yourself.

I did not review the recipe cite before I replied to this post so I'm sorry if I missed anything.

try it again and baste those suckers at the end.

[JCGrill]

Absolutely correct. Don't marinade, glaze.

[jfmorris]

I’ve found that wings, which you usually want crisp, are not a good item for long marinades. Certainly not an acid skin dissolving marinade it sounds like! The skin plumps up with liquid and will at best be soggy. I’ve got a couple wing recipes I use, but don’t go longer than 2-4 hours with a wet marinade, and prefer a dry rub or dry brining technique instead. Lately I just cook them on the Grillgrates I’m the kettle over direct heat and brush sauce on at the end. With the Grillgrates the runoff sauce tends to sizzle and flavor the wings and not go through much and put out my charcoal.

[Willy]

One key here is that huli-huli chicken is regularly turned, supposedly "huli" means something like "turn" or "flip". In other words, huli-huli is a technique, not a recipe or flavoring per se. I do a version of huli-huli using thighs, or spatchcocked whole birds, in a rotisserie basket and it turns out great. I do let the marinated pieces drain/dry before loading into the roto basket and I do spray them and the basket with Pam.

As others have noted, the high sugar content of the marinade ensures that leaving any piece--wing, thigh, breast, whatever--unturned for 30 minutes means it will be stuck to the grill.

[budbrew2]

Thank you for the responses. I know from past experience that wings cannot brine as long as a whole or spatchcocked chicken, but for some reason I didn’t think about that with the marinade. It was just so shocking to me how the skin literally just fell apart that I figured I did something wrong. I will try the recipe again on a whole chicken and return to to my regular dry rubs smoked wings.

[Willy]

I "think" (not know) that the long marinating time is not really at fault. The skin "stuck and burned"; it didn't dissolve. Frequent turning is the secret. I'm willing to be shown to be wrong.

[budbrew2]

I need to come out of the 20th century and get a phone that can actually take a picture. That might help me show what I saw. The wings, at the first time I turned them, were on the WSM. They did not stick to the grate, but no matter how delicately I touched them to flip them, the skin cut, ripped or pulled off...after only 30-40 min on the smoker and they were not nearly finished cooking. It was only after I tried to move them to the gas grill that they stuck and any little amount of skin that had been remaining came the rest of the way off.

I’ve made a ton of chicken and wings over years and have never has a skin texture like this. The one thing that was different is that I used the Huli-Huli recipe and marinaded them all day. I just wondered if anyone else had an experience like ai did or if mine was unique.

[FireMan]

Ahem, I mentioned this on another post, did something happen here? Nope, didn’t think so.