Looking for help - wings on PBC

[pbrown1224]

Hosting a big party for my fiancé's work friends. Should have... 12-14 people. I have been tasked with providing the main event and doing some chicken wings - apparently they're all picky about other stuff, but came to a consensus that they all like wings.

Planning on smoking them on my PBC and following PBC's posted recipe: https://www.pitbarrelcooker.com/reso...bbq-hot-wings/

Any recommendations, tips or tricks I could take into account for my first attempt at wings? I've done whole turkey, whole chicken and pork shoulder all on the PBC with great success - but the wings are intimidating me a little bit.

Any recommendations/recipes on sauces? I'd like to just go store bought to save myself some work, but am worried about the sugar content in some of those sauces being too high and the wings burning.

Thanks in advance!

[Spinaker]

Dry brine them with salt on an elevated wire rack and place the rack on a pan in the fridge, overnight. Do not cover them, rather, let them breathe and the skin dry out a bit. This will give you a head start on that crispy skin.

I would cook them Hot and Fast. Shoot for about 400 F in the barrel. Place them all evenly on the rack and let them cook. You may need to rotate them half way through cooking to get the other side of the wings.

For a sauce, I love to use Frank's Wing Sauce with a little bit of butter added. Get the sauce hot and throw it in a stainless bowl. After you remove the wings from the PBC, give them a toss in the bowl. I like to wait to toss until I am serving the wings, this will help to preserve the crispy skin, and it will give them a nice, hot wing.

[au4stree]

This. ^^^^ What he said.

[klflowers]

+1 on the buffalo sauce. If you want to really go old school, use regular 1/2 cup Frank's hot sauce mixed with 1/3 cup melted butter per 2 to 2 1/2lb wings. That is supposedly the original buffalo wing sauce. Frank's isn't overly hot either, IMO. Like Spinaker said, toss them in the sauce right before serving.

I like Marie's Chunky Blue Cheese dressing and celery and carrots on the side.

I don't have a PBC (though I think I want one), so I can't offer any advice on the actual cook.

Man, I want some wings now.

This whole post made me want stuff. I need to quit this site, but I want it too

[FishTalesNC]

Also, in my experience when cooking on the PBC grate, there can be "hot spots". You might want to spin the grate a couple of times during the cook so you don't end up with any burned ones. This has worked for me a couple of times. 12-14 is a lot of people, that grate doesn't hold many wings, gonna take several batches I think, good luck!

[jfmorris]

I cook wings a lot, on my gas grill and 22" kettle. The only limitation with the PBC is that the 18" cooking grate won't hold enough for a dozen folks, so you will be cooking several batches. I can fit about 5 pounds on the grate of a 22" kettle, where I use Grillgrates and cook on pretty much the full kettle. You will probably fit 3 pounds at a time on the PBC 18" grate.

Cook, flipping once or twice, and follow all the other above suggestions. I like to paint the buffalo sauce on both sides during the last 5 minutes of cooking, once I know the skin is crispy, much like I would BBQ sauce. We like them about as good as my fried wings these days., and much easier. Plus the deep fryer only holds about 1.5 pounds at a time!

[Steve B]

The RV Works Fryer is a beast.
I can easily fry 10lbs of wings at a time.
It’s no sweat.
And as far as cleaning. Not a big deal. I’ve Had mine for 2 years now. Just cleaned it out for the first time. Yeah it was over due. But it was still pumping out great tasting wings.

[jfmorris]

Steve B are you saying you were able to leave that sucker full of cooking oil for 2 years??? I assume we are talking something like this;

https://cajunfryer.com/shop/ff2r-st-4-gallon-2-basket-fryer-with-stand/

[Steve B]

jfmorris Yup. Although I shouldn't have gone that long. I'll keep it to once a year from now on. I do use a product called Miroil. it helps restore the oil.
And yes that's the fryer I have and it actually holds closer to 6 gallons of oil. Get the optional double basket and it will easily cook 40 wings at one time.

[JeffJ]

Definitely hit them with sauce during the last 10 minutes of the cook. And then toss them in the sauce again when they come off. For the sauce I use my homemade hot sauce mixed with a little butter. Any good hot sauce will work though.

[shify]

Agree with dry brining and then letting them sit uncovered in the fridge overnight. Some people like putting baking powder on the skin in addition to salt but to me, it makes the skin dry and papery. To make them extra crispy, i'll sometimes finish them on my gasser over direct heat for a few minutes per side.

As far as saucing, I always smoke my wings naked and sauce only after they are cooked. I usually do one batch buffalo with Franks and melted butter -- equal parts is "medium" -- and then one batch with a different flavor. The crowd favorite has been a honey sriracha sauce. Its pretty much just butter, honey and sriracha to taste with a little soy sauce to thin it out. I may have added a squeeze of lime at times but frankly don't remember.

[JeffJ]

If you are using the PBC consider putting the wings in completely frozen. With both rebars out you should be north of 350 and exposure to that heat for a longer period of time will produce great color and crispiness with your skin.

[Polarbear777]

You basically have two optimized options with wings, but in all cases dry brine and let dry open in the fridge at least overnight.

1. Smoke at 225 until internal temp is 160-165F or so. Then deep fry for just long enough to brown and crisp them. (I use a wok outside and not much oil, they are maybe 60-90 seconds each batch. For this you’ll probably want a rub applied prior to smoking, and I generally don’t add a sauce (pic attached.). In the PBC I used some wire to hang another grate so I can get extra capacity. The advantage here is there’s no sauce step and if you can hold them in an oven at 150-170 you can then fry on demand to finish.

2. Cook hot and fast ~450-500F. This will take maybe 25-35 minutes to reach 170-175 internal temp and crisp the skin at the same time. Then I like the toss in classic franks and melted butter sauce. I usually put them back on for a few minutes to sizzle the sauce and then toss in the sauce again. Usually people assume these are deep fried (wings have enough fat to fry themselves at these temperatures.).

The PBC is tough because it likes to run at 300-325F or so, which isn’t ideal for either of these (perfect for whole birds though). I have mine fan controlled so I can run either way. If you can leave the lid cracked you may be able to get hot enough. Going low will be harder. in a Weber kettle the vortex is an easy way to achieve the temps.

[klflowers]

Those are some good looking wings

[jfmorris]

pbrown1224 the more I think about this, the more I think that you don't have the right tools to pull this particular cook off, if you only have the PBC to cook on.

Think about it this way. While you can feed a ton of folks by hanging brisket/butt/ribs/chickens in that PBC, wings are restricted to the 18" grate. Fact is, wings, even cooked hot on a grill, will take 30-40 minutes. They take me 45 or so most of the time on the kettle or gas grill at 350. To feed 12 to 14 folks wings, you will need at least 1/2 pound per person, and most guys would eat 1 pound. Remember that the wing has a lot of bone in the weight, not that much meat. That means you need somewhere between 7 and 14 pounds of wings. I would cook 20 pounds if I were cooking for that crowd. On your PBC, if you can only fit 3 pounds at a time, you will be cooking wings in batches for 4-5 hours. That's just not practical I would imagine.

If you have any other grills or smokers, and can fire them all up, that would be the approach to take. Otherwise, I think you need to push for a menu change... something to supplement the wings at the very least, that you CAN cook in advance, like a butt or some ribs.

EDIT: The way to pull this off is to buy a much much bigger grill! Or a giant deep fryer...

[pbrown1224]

Thanks everyone for the comments and advice.

Based on everyone's posts, I do think I'm going to switch my methodology. I have a 22" Weber kettle, and I'll plan to do the bulk of them on that. Seems to be the better way to go. I may still do one batch on the PBC just to get that nice smoke and people can have them as an option - but seems like the best way to do this for this sized crowd will be on the Weber instead of the PBC.

In addition to that - going to try the dry brine listed out above. Sounds like that will produce my best results.

[jfmorris]

I think you will want both going as grills to cook enough wings for this crowd. I use both my 22" kettle AND my gasser if cooking for a crowd, as the kettle at best will only handle 5 pounds, and that is if you can use the full grate.

[JeffJ]

You can run both cookers at the same time. In the PBC if you use the grate and leave the rebars out you should hit 350. If you make 4 foil shims and use them to crack the lid you should be able to hit 400. Obviously, you can use a bit of wood in both cookers for smoke. For birds I like apple wood, but for some reason I prefer hickory for buffalo wings.

Have fun and please let us know how it turns out.

[pbrown1224]

Sorry for the delay but THANKS to everyone for the help and suggestions! Ended up doing 8 lbs total because we had other people bringing so much food. Did 5 lbs on the Weber kettle, and 3 lbs on the PBC. Weber wings were dry brined for 24 hours, half went into Famous Dave's Sweet & Zesty and the other half went into Frank's Wing Sauce and then went back on the grill for 5 minutes. The PBC wings were rubbed with PBC's all purpose pit rub the day before and just hung out in that over night. No sauce went on those.

Everything turned out phenomenal. I'm always wary to prep chicken for groups because I'm nervous that I'll undercook something, but my Thermopop made sure everything was where it needed to be. There was not a clear winner on favorites - each wing type got about 33% of the vote but everyone thought they were amazing. Personally, the Frank's were my favorites. From the dry brine the skin got nice and crisp, and the heat level was perfect. Thanks again everyone for the help! Until next time!

[JeffJ]

It looks like you were successful.

[TheQuietOne]

Too late in the game to help, but using drumsticks for whatever wing recipe you use gives you a much better meat to bother ratio. They're less expensive too.