Kamado Grilled Chicken Wings

I finally did it! Kamado Grilled Chicken Wings

Ever since owning the Kamado I have wanted to do wings, but my wife is not a fan of wings. So as you can imagine the opportunity for wings has been limited. This recent opportunity arose when she sent me a message “I’ve brought you a tray of wings”. I literally had to read the message a couple of times, but I was like SWEET. Now the mission was to convert her, I have done it before so I knew I was up to the challenge. Once upon a time she never liked fresh fish. That was until I converted her after cooking some amazing flathead. She now loves fresh flathead. Surely chicken wings will be easy – Mission accepted!

Kamado Grilled Chicken Wings

Ingredients:

* season to taste, I was probably a little heavier with the Garlic and Dirty Bird rub. 

Kamado Setup:

Set for direct grilling. No deflectors and the grill racks in the upper position.

Before most cooks, I like to remove all the charcoal and clean out the ash, not always necessary but certainly helps with temperature control. If there is too much ash build up it can impact on your airflow and adversely affect the temperature performance.

Once “swept” out I put the charcoal back in, starting with the larger pieces and then the smaller ones over the top. If lighting with the hot air starter, I am less fussy with how I build the coal base. If lighting with fire starters I try and make a more conscious effort to “build” a fire or at least something that assists the fire to take hold quicker.

Target dome temp 176C – 205C [350f – 400f]

Method:

I chose to separate the wings into drummies and winglets, the dog was happy as he got to eat the wing tips.

I found a great video that explains a good way to separate your wings.

Place all the chicken pieces into a bowl, add all the ingredients and mix well.

Once well combined, refrigerate for as long as possible. I had 5 hours which seemed to be plenty of time. You could go overnight if you are well organised.


Once the grill is up to a stable temperature 175C-205C [350f-400f] add the chicken pieces directly to a clean grill.

Close the dome and let the Kamado do its thing. Allow about 15 minutes then turn each piece. At the 15 minute mark while turning the chicken pieces monitor the grill for the hotspots and make an adjustment to the placement of the chicken. Place the larger pieces around the hotter spots on the grill. Once all pieces are flipped, close the dome for another 15 minutes.

At this stage check the temperature of each piece (in the largest section of each piece) you are aiming to have around 81C [177f]

* Some of the guidelines recommend 75C [165f] for chicken, however, I take them that little bit further, I find it also helps with a crispier finish without the sacrifice of moisture.

For the pieces that are at temperature move to the coolest section of the grill if there is still some pieces that are not quite done, move them to the hotter area of the grill, close the dome and check again in approx. 10 mins.

The cooked pieces (those at temp) they will develop a nice crispness to them during this last phase.

Once all reached temp, remove and serve.

The Results

AMAZING…

For a non-wing person (my wife) she loved them. The flavour was there and they had a really nice crispness to the skin with that nice charcoal char. The winglets were still juicy, I was worried they may dry out but they were perfect.

 

What I would do differently

The next batch of wings I will ramp up the spice/chilli and offset that with a sauce of some sort, thinking a white sauce.

Till next time Joe On…