Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

I stopped at a local BJs to see if they had any pellets for the smoker. They had the pitboss Competition Blend in a 20 pound bag for $9.99. Needless to say I bought quite a few of them.

 

Actually the original recipe I had was to make them under the broiler in an electric oven... make sure the wings are at least 6 inches below broiler.. skin side down for 10 min then flip skin side up for another 10 min..

the first time I made them it kinda smoked up the kitchen so when I flipped them I turned down the broiler form high to low and that was far more successful and way les smokey.

I have made them on the grill several times but they never get that consistent mahogany color all the way around like they do in the air fryer or the oven.

Here is the link to one of my postings before and it includes a link there to the original place I found the recipe

 

Do you use the optional shichimi togarashi in the original recipe?

 

Bring on the poultry!

 

I actually looked for the shichimi togarashi at the Asian Market but I could not find it... but I did manage to find all the ingredients to make my own 7 spice.... I honestly wasn't impressed but it might have been the orange peel that threw me off?

 

The asian 7 spice has orange peel from what im reading. Lebanese and arabic 7 spice has different version yhat doesnt have that

 

Yea we were talking about the Asian version... I had expected it to be spicier.. but after the wings are cooked , not a lot sticks onto them.. maybe using it on them before cooking but I bet it will burn .. especially the orange

 

https://www.daringgourmet.com/shichimi-togarashi-and-nanami-togarashi-japanese-seven-spice-blend/

 

Wings are done. Turkey has a few more minutes.
Used a lot more butter than I usually do do to the recommendation of @Cold Iron

We’ll see how they do!

 

Lessons were learned today....


Recently Sake Wings were mentioned and previously someone somewhere asked me if they could use Vodka instead of Sake.. and hell I didn't have the right answer.

I also didn't know the real answer to an question about cheap vodka so.. just because it's Tuesday I decided to conduct a few experiments all related.

First I swung by a local store and picked up a 5 cup Brita water filter pitcher for $20. At a second store, a small package of already cut chicken wings and a 1L bottle of the cheap vodka that is nearly the same price as the Sake I buy at the same store.

Back home and ran 3 pitchers of water through the Brita per the instructions then ran the cheap vodka through a total of 8 cycles. (Arbitrary number from some online research). My goal wasn't to change it into Grey Goose.. it was only to remove the harshness and see if it could be used with wings.

Put the wings in a glass bowl, covered them with a cup or so of the "filtered" vodka. Left them to soak for about 5 hours.

As per the original recipe, I poured off the liquid and patted each wing dry with paper towels and put them on a wire rack/cookie sheet skin side down with only salt and pepper for seasoning.

Broiled those wings on high in the electric oven for 10 minutes and turned it to low, flipped the wings skin side up and went for another 10 minutes.

The results?? I mean you've read this far..



So.. here's the verdict.. Just use Sake.
These wings were that super crispy wing I've wanted (and achieved with Sake) BUT... In the oven they smoked .. badly.. like I had to open opposing windows in the house and turn a fan on high to eject the smoke.

They did not achieve that dark mahogany color that the Sake Wings did. There was the crunch I sought but just plain old chicken flavor that seemed to be bland.

 

Bonus points - you can drink the vodka and not taste the wings at all

 

I tried the sake wings in oven the other day. I didn’t not like them, I’d do them again and next time probably on the grill. Just wasn’t a “aha” moment for me.

 

We all have our own tastes... my goal over the years has always been crispy wings... after 1000's of wings my preference is the Sake Wings and they do work well on the grill.. just not going to be a uniform color.. but that doesn't affect the actual taste despite easting with our eyes.

I cannot recommend using vodka indoors at least.. though I suspect they would be just fine outside where smoke is expected. I noticed that the skin burned faster with the vodka too so that's a consideration on the grill as well due to the direct flame instead of the radiant heat from a electric oven broiler.

The best thing about grilling and smoking etc is that you can take any idea and make it your own. The only "rules" are food safety rules... Otherwise all bets are off. I won't soak wings in Jack Daniels since I don't want that bitter taste in the wings, but if someone enjoyed that there's nothing saying they can't.

I've smoked everything from butter to water and most of the meats in between along with seasonings and spices and flour and sugars and on and on and on... practice, experiment, practice, experiment. I always recommend a notebook so you can keep track of what you did, how you liked it etc.

 

I have a notebook, not much in it. I usually forget to take notes.

 

^

 

I learned my lesson the hard way when I made a recipe I found online and really liked and then the link was gone when I went to return to it. I have a ton of screenshots on my phone and bookmarks etc but personally I find the notebook easier to edit. Another one of those things that's not for everyone.

I like to experiment .. a lot.. so "habits" aren't always there.

 

As someone who is on the fence about investing in a good smoker looking at all these wonderful and delicious food items does two things: Makes me want to buy a smoker ASAP and makes me extremely hungry for some brisket!

Smoking is certainly an art form, keep up the good posts!

 

Do some research and don't just buy the first smoker you see! If you have an idea what you want to make in it, it will help you determine the size, shape and fuel type - all within your budget of course.

 

I will agree and disagree with this.

Do some research - but I bought a dual grill gas grill and charcoal barrel grill. Doing this allowed me to have both and live with both. Now I know - Grilling, I will use gas I won't use charcoal for grilling. Smoking, offset stick. If I didn't live with this/each of these, I wouldn't really know that. So, do some research but also factor in cost in vs. cost out, you might want a top of the line pooper, but get something cheap first and learn that you do or do not want it, and then pitch it on craigslist or facebook later to either upgrade or swap to a different style.

 

https://www.thermoworks.com/Thermapen-Mk4?quantity=1&color=9

Closing out the purple thermapen MK4. $69 regularly $99. Pretty good deal there. I paid full price.