October may be the best month for sports.  You have College Football in full swing, Pro football three nights a week, hockey and basketball getting started and of course the Fall Classic.  What this means is a lot of weekends spent hanging out either tailgating at the game or at home in front of the tube and either way you need good grub to go with all that great beer.  Well what goes better with beer than wings?  Nothing.  So here's todays recipe.  Enjoy.

 

Smoked Chicken Wings 3 Ways

Smoking the wings

The first step in making this recipe is smoking the wings.  Once you've got your wings smoked you can create any number of variations on the theme.
Step One:  Take a large bowl of water and submerge 2 lbs of hickory or mesquite wood chips in it.  You'll want these to soak for at least half an hour but an hour would be good.
Step Two: Take 6 lbs of fresh chicken wings and separate the drummette from the wing portion by cutting through the joint with a chefs knife.  This is really easy to do especially if you close the joint which will show you exactly where to cut between the bones.
 
Step Three:  Spread them all out on a sheet pan and season with kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper.  Get both sides.
Step Three:  Build a fire in your grill way over on one side.  If you're using a gas grill only turn on the burners on one side if you can.  Set it to as low as setting as possible as you want to maintain a temperature of 200 to 225 degrees.  Once your fire is going place your first batch of chicken wings on the grill furthest from the fire.  You'll be working in stages as I doubt your grill is large enough to hold all the wings.  Once you have the first batch on add one large handful of wood chips to the coals.  If you're using a gas grill you will want to put the chips in a doubled up heavy duty foil pan and set that right on top of the coals.  When you see the smoke start to dissipate add more chips until the wings start to take on a smoky brownish hue, this should take about 20 to 30 minutes.  Once you've reached that color remove that batch and repeat until you have smoked all six pounds of wings.
Step Four:  Once you have all the wings smoked and removed from the grill then its time to turn up the heat.  Build a big hot fire covering the area of your grill.  If you're using a gas grill turn on all the burners and set them on high.  Once you have your grill screaming hot start adding your wings back to the grill.  You will want to watch them closely because they can burn pretty quickly but you want to really crisp them up and render off as much of the fat as possible.  Once you have good crisp skin and its turned a nice golden brown flip them over and grill the other side.  Remove from the heat and you're ready for sauce.
Traditional Buffalo Style Chicken Wings


Equipment:

Saucepan

Rubber Spatula

Mixing Bowl

Tongs


Ingredients:

2 Lbs of chicken wings

2 cloves minced garlic

1/4 cup of butter

1 1/2 cup hot sauce (Frank's or Durkee Red Hot are traditional)


Directions:

Melt the butter in the saucepan over medium low heat. 

Once the butters is melted add in the minced garlic and let it cook for about 2 minutes but don't let the garlic or the butter start to brown.  If it starts browning turn your heat down.

After the two minutes has passed add your 1 1/2 cup of hot sauce and stir to combine.  Let it simmer for about 5 minutes then remove from the heat. 


Saucing your wings:

Add 8 to 10 wings to your large mixing bowl and add about a 1/4 cup of your sauce.  Toss to coat and serve with your standard Bufflalo wing accoutrements.  Of course you can't have wings without beer.  Douse the flames with a Czech Pils from Lagunitas, Mamma's Little Yella Pils from Oskar Blues


Smoked Chipotle BBQ WIngs

Ok, this is a one that you can take two ways.  You can go all out and make the sauce from scratch or you can cheat.  I'll give you the option to do it either way.


Equipment:

Saucepan

Rubber Spatula

Mixing Bowl

Tongs


Ingredients:

Sauce from Scratch

2 Lbs of chicken wings

3 cups ketchup

3/4 cup molasses

2 cloves minced garlic

2 tbl spoons dijon mustard

1 tbl spoon black pepper

3 tbl spoons apple cider vinegar

2 finely minced chipotle peppers and 2 tbl spoons of the adobo sauce from the can


Cheaters way

3 cups of your favorite BBQ sauce

2 finely minced chipotle peppers and 2 tbl spoons of the adobo sauce from the can


Directions:

Place your saucepan over medium heat and add your ketchup, molasses, mustard, vinegar and garlic.

Let the sauce reduce for 15 to 20 minutes stirring frequently so as not to burn it.  

Once thickened add your chipotle peppers and black pepper

Once it reaches a thick sticky consistency remove from the heat


Saucing your wings:

Add 8 to 10 wings to your large mixing bowl and add about a 1/2 cup of your sauce.  Toss to coat and serve with lots of napkins.  You'll want to drink an American style Pale Ale with this one, something like a Sierra Nevada, Great Divide Denver Pale Ale or a Dale's Pale from Oskar Blues.


Spicy Asian Orange Glazed Chicken Wings

Equipment:

Saucepan

Rubber Spatula

Mixing Bowl

Tongs

Ingredients:

2 Lbs of chicken wings

9 oz of orange marmalade

2 cloves minced garlic

2 tbl spoons Korean chile paste


Directions:

Place your saucepan over medium heat and add in all your marmalade

Once your marmalade is hot and starts to get syrupy add in your garlic and chile paste

Cook for 2 to 3 minutes to integrate the flavors then remove from the heat.


Saucing your wings:

Add 8 to 10 wings to your large mixing bowl and add about a 1/4 cup of your sauce.  Serve with thinly sliced Thai chiles and a nice American style IPA like the Jasmine IPA from Elysian or the Burton Baton from Dogfish Head.


So give these wings a try and I promise you you won't be buying those plastic wrapped ones at the grocery store ever again.


Creative Commons License
Smoked Chicken Wings 3 Ways by Brewforia Beer Market is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at brewforia.com.