I am making smoked buffalo wings for the games tomorrow and pondering brining the wings ahead of time. While I don’t think there’s any downside to doing this I’m wondering if the wings are big enough for it to be worth the effort. Is there any risk or overkill? I will be separating the drumettes from the wings and serving each.
Worth the effort, IMHO.
yes, it works great.
Here is a recipe that does just that. 8 c water with 1 c ea kosher salt & granulated sugar, wings brined for 1-4 hrs. Should be a decent place to start.
Thanks. Prepping the wings now.
My go-to wing preparation doesn’t really include a brine, but I let my wings marinade in a bath of buttermilk, hot sauce and my BBQ rub for 6-8 hours. I suppose you could technically make a case for it being a brine, since buttermilk contains acid.
Gotta go with Kent on this one. If you were doing an entire chicken I’d say the brine but if doing wings I believe the results will be much better with a buttermilk based marinade.
For smoked, not fried, wings? I’ve got a dozen chicken legs sitting in 2 c whole buttermilk, 1/4 c Crystal hotsauce, and 1 T salt at the moment, but they will get floured & panfried later today. Does anyone use buttermilk prior to smoking? That’s new to me.
I don’t think it matters which preparation you use. This is how I make mine:
Wings marinate in a bath of:
1/3 cup salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup BBQ rub
1/3 cup hot sauce
About a quart of buttermilk
Marinade for 6-8 hours. Rinse and rest, and then hit them with some of the rub before they hit the grill.
Grill roasted (offside) over lump and apple wood, spun in a combination of hot sauce, garlic poached butter and then flashed again on the grill to char.
Anyone ever boiled them first to render the fat? I had them this way at a friend’s house and enjoyed them.
Final product came out very well, if a bit salty. Wings were brined overnight in salt, sugar brine. Smoked over coal and pecan wood for 40 minutes or so then blasted in the broiler for a bit of char and then tossed in a sauce of Franks, melted butter, and a little Tobasco and Sriracha for extra spice. They are even better today as I like mine a little less wet.
I think Chris’ idea of par-boiling to reduce the fat might have a bit of value as the wings were a bit plump off the smoker and then left quite a pool after broiling.
I know this is after the fact, but how long did you smoke them for and at what temp?
Around 40 min at 300.
I let em sit in a rub mix overnight and throw them on a low grill 275 ish
with mesquite chips for about 1 1/2 hours.
To me smokey wings taste weird with franks or crystal.
Brines don’t contain acid, marinades do.
I tried just the brine portion of the recipe and the wings came out salty to our taste also. Suggestions on what and how to adjust things?
Shorten the brine time?
Lower the salt ratio, but compensate with a longer brine?
Soak in freshwater after the brining?
I definitely have to alter brining concoction and/or procedure to lower the saltiness for our palates.
Chris
Brined foods will take on salt until they reach an “equilibrium” of sorts. So if you keep the same salty (to your palate) brine and brine for a shorter time, or if you lower the salt ratio slightly but keep the same time in brine, it should solve the problem. That is, at least, how people usually adjust brines when they are writing their own recipes for certain things. I have never heard of anyone soaking in freshwater after brining, because it’s much easier to just adjust the ratios and timing of your recipe than to have to do a second step every time.