On Thursday night I moved a 10-pound bag of frozen wings from the chest freezer to the fridge, spread out on two sheet pans, and Matt checked on them twice on Friday like they were bread dough. Father's Day lunch was his call, and his call was smoked wings on the pellet grill. The whole bag.
The boys had a surprise for him, too. Back in March, when Matt bought the used pellet grill, he complained that its smoke was milder than his offset smoker's and said he wanted to try a smoke tube. Wyatt remembered. He and Eli picked one out with money from their chore jar, and Matt opened it at breakfast Sunday and went straight outside to look at the grill. Here's how the wings went, the two sauces, and what the meal cost.
Thawing and prep
The bag was party wings, flats and drumettes already separated, from Costco for $26. It held about a hundred pieces. Ten pounds of frozen wings take a good two days to thaw in our fridge, which is the only way I thaw meat that size (the USDA's guidance is fridge, cold water or microwave, never the counter, and the fridge is the only one that works for ten pounds).
Saturday night I drained them, patted them very dry with paper towels, and tossed them in two big bowls with salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika and a tablespoon and a half of aluminum-free baking powder. The baking powder helps the skin dry out and crisp, and the aluminum-free kind doesn't leave a metallic taste. Then they went back into the fridge overnight on wire racks set over the sheet pans, uncovered, so the skin could dry even more. It's the same thing I do for Super Bowl wings in the air fryer.
On the grill
- Matt filled the new smoke tube with hickory pellets, lit it, and set the grill to 225. The wings went on at 11:00, spread across the main grate and the upper rack. The whole bag fit, barely.
- After 45 minutes of smoke, he turned the grill up to 400.
- About 35 to 40 minutes later, flipped once halfway, the skin was crisp and they read 180 in the thickest drumettes with the Thermapen. Chicken is safe at 165, but wings have enough connective tissue that they eat much better closer to 180.
- Into big bowls with sauce, tossed, and back on the grill for 5 minutes so the sauce could set.
It was 97 degrees by lunch. Matt stood at the grill in the shade of the pecan tree with a glass of iced tea, and Biscuit lay under the patio table and supervised.
Two sauces
Buffalo: two parts hot sauce to one part melted butter, whisked together in a saucepan. Nothing fancy, and it's the one Matt and Wyatt fight over.
Honey jalapeño: half a cup of honey, two cloves of garlic, a few chopped pickled jalapeños and about three tablespoons of the brine from the first jar of this summer's quick-pickled jalapeños from our backyard plants, simmered for five minutes. It's sweet, sharp and a little hot, and it was my favorite.
Here's my miss. I told Matt to brush the honey glaze on when he turned the heat up, figuring it would cook in. Honey and 400 degrees don't get along. The first tray's glaze turned black at the edges within fifteen minutes, and we had to scrape and re-sauce those wings at the end. The sweet sauce goes on in the last 5 minutes, never earlier. I know that from every barbecue I've ever helped with, and I said it anyway.
What it cost, and who ate what
- 10-pound bag of frozen party wings: $26.00
- Buffalo sauce: $2.36
- Honey jalapeño glaze: $1.45
- Pellets, about 7 pounds including the smoke tube: $3.15
- Potato salad, made at 7 a.m. while the kitchen was cool: $3.40
- Celery, carrots and ranch: $2.84
- Six ears of corn, grilled: $1.80
Receipt check: $41.00 for Father's Day lunch for five, with about forty wings left over.
Matt ate eighteen wings and declared the smoke tube "a real improvement," which from Matt is a speech. Wyatt ate fourteen. Eli had eight plain ones on his own plate, with ranch in a cup that he didn't use. Rosie gnawed on three drumettes and got sauce in her eyebrows somehow. Ron called from Tyler while we were eating, and Matt took the phone out to the grill to show him the smoke tube on video. We'll be at Ron and Debbie's in a week and a half, and I suspect the smoke tube is coming with us.
The leftover wings went into the fridge for lunches. Cold buffalo wings are, according to Matt, the best breakfast there is. I didn't argue. It was his day.
