Low and Slow Wings

The Gang and I eat wings almost every week. Between all of us it more then likely is every week. And for the most part the wings we consume are, while good, still your typical fair; fried and tossed in sauce. Again, nothing wrong with that, but how about something different?

That is exactly what I set out to do this weekend.  Originally the plan was to make a slab of baby back ribs for the wife and I. It’s getting warmer out and I had a craving for some fall off the bone pieces of pork heaven.  Those take 5 hours, so why not throw on some wings while I’m at it.

Since this site is about wings I’ll skip the details about the ribs.

First thing I did was get the wings in a marinade. The marinade was nothing  special really, just Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, orange juice (actually it was orange, banana, mango), olive oil, cracked pepper, cayenne, and malt vinegar.

Once those had been marinating for a few hours it was time to get the grill going. The grill I used is a Char-Broil Silver Smoker with the side fire box, pictured below. This thing is for REAL BBQ’in. Not just grilling a steak or some brats. But real low and slow BBQ. There is a difference between grilling and BBQ’ing but that’s for another article.

I got he grill fired up to 225 degrees, which is the temperature you want for low and slow BBQ ribs. After the ribs were on the smoker for 3 hours I put the wings on to cook for the remaining two hours.  The ribs were on the far right side of the grill, furthest from the heat. Since the wings were going to cook faster and I wanted more heat (to give them a charred crispy skin) I put them on the grill closest to the fire box.

One thing to note also is I used a combination of Kingsford Charcoal and Hickory wood for the fire. Hickory adds that great smokey flavor that you’re looking for in BBQ. This is something that can’t be achieved on a regular grill with just charcoal or gas grill.

The night before I made a home made North Carolina style BBQ sauce that I planned on using for the ribs. Unfortunately the sauce turned out really spicy. Not that it was a huge problem but I wanted to make sure we could taste the ribs so I decided to use a bottle of Famous Dave’s for the ribs. While the wings were going I thought to myself that that would make a great sauce to baste the wings in while they cooked. So every 20 min or so I’d baste the wings in the spicy sauce to add some moisture. This is why I believe the wings turned out as fabulous as they did. Not only did the sauce keep the wings moist but it added a nice complex level of heat.

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Two hours was just right. The skin was crispy and not soggy at all. Over-all I was extremely pleased at how they turned out considering the whole recipe was by the seat of my pants. I’m going to give these another try soon to make sure I can recreate the flavor again and get the recipe up shortly after. Keep a look out for the recipe in the coming weeks.