Crispy Smoked Wings + Golden Buffalo Sauce

Backyard barbecues, yard parties and cookouts usually follow a pretty simple pattern; grilled meats like hot dogs and burgers, not that there is anything wrong with that. Sometimes the host is a real grilling enthusiast or home pit master and there will be ribs and pork butt, maybe even brisket. I’ve held enough cookouts and backyard shindigs to learn a few lessons though. People hate smelling food and being told it isn't ready just yet. Come hungry stay hungry is never a solid plan- and when they’re family or friends of yours, folks seem a little more comfortable letting you know these things (especially if alcohol is being served). Groups of people large and small also really like wings. When you have a group of people over, and there are all the smells, and all these folks are suddenly hungry, these wings will be the best wings. Its hard to tell the guy at the grill how you would barbecue when you’re busy chowing wings down to the bare bones.

Wings cook quickly in a smoker, and if made in advance they reheat just as quickly too. Brining them ahead of time ensures they stay moist and tender, and spraying them down during the process keeps the skin ultra crispy. The sauce recipe is unique but still familiar- a butter laden smoky Carolina gold hybridized with classic buffalo wing flavor. This instructable is a little more involved than just tossing some bare wings in a smoker, but it’s not that much more involved. Even served next to the main courses, people always go for the wings.

Step 1: Ingredients and Equipment

Equipment is fairly straightforward. You will need a smoker that can maintain a consistent temperature around 250degreesF. Whatever smoker you are familiar with works best. Right now I’m using a pellet fed smoker with a blend of hickory and oak. Hickory is very well suited to this recipe, but so is mesquite for that deep rich smokiness or alder and fruitwoods for a lighter and more delicate flavor profile. You will also need:

a mixing bowl

a sauce pot

whisk

large cambro or other nonreactive vessel that can fit all of your wings submerged

knife and cutting board

gloves

shallow pan or heatproof dish; I use a regular loaf pan

tongs

clean spray bottle

instant read thermometer

The ingredients are all common and can be found in any grocery store, and you may already have them all in the pantry. There are a couple notes at the bottom for substitutions and explanation, marked with a corresponding *

-Whole chicken wings

-water

-kosher salt*1

For the sauce:

1cup Plain yellow mustard

1/4cup honey

1/4cup light brown sugar

1/4cup Heinz 57 sauce*2

1-2teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

black pepper

1/2 stick butter

1/2cup+ Franks red hot*3

1/2cup Apple cider vinegar*4

For the spray:

8oz apple juice

9oz apple cider vinegar*4

2teaspoons hot sauce

2Tb ketchup

1teaspoon salt

*1 I use diamond brand kosher salt, mainly because it dissolves a lot more easily in cold or cool water.

*2 I don’t know exactly how to explain it or what it is, but it has become a staple ingredient in some of my sauces. Its ketchup-y but also builds a better texture that helps the sauce really stick to whatever you put it on.

*3 Feel free to use other brands of red hot sauces like Texas Pete, Crystal, or Valentina. Frank’s is my go-to though for that classic buffalo wing flavor.

*4 You will see in the photos that I have Kombucha vinegar and apple cider vinegar in the shot. I like to set aside a portion of kombucha when I brew it and then let it continue to ferment further into vinegar-like tartness and acidity to use in recipes that call for apple cider or sherry vinegar. It has its own developed flavor profile and isn’t as sweet as apple cider vinegar and is also a lot more dry. If you have some, use the lesser quantity in the ingredients list. If not, 1/4cup apple cider vinegar will do the trick.

Step 2: Brine the Wings

This step is crucial to cooking wings that stay moist and tender and don’t dry out in the smoker. It also seasons the wings deeply. Allow at least 4hrs up to overnight before smoking the wings. To brine them in a solution of water and kosher salt, I use Diamond kosher salt and prepare a 6% sodium solution, or around 3.8oz salt per TWO quarts of water. Use at a minimum of 2 quarts so that the wings are fully submerged and there is plenty of brine surrounding them* Fully dissolve the salt in the water and be sure it is cool when you add the raw wings to it. Make sure the wings are fully submerged and stay refrigerated while they are brining.

*When I originally wrote and published this, I didn't catch my mistake when proofreading. It originally was worded to convey 3.3oz per ONE quart of water which is 10%+, way too high of a saline content. Using too much salt in the brine will not only overseason and the wings making them too salty, but it can actually adversley affect them during the cooking process drying them out.

Step 3: Sauce

The sauce is a balanced combination of a basic Carolina gold-style mustard barbecue sauce and traditional wing sauce. It’s not overly spicy, its salty and tangy. And it’s smoky. Smoke adheres to fats, so instead of simmering the sauce on the stovetop, it gets poured into a pan and set in the smoker to absorb the smoke while the flavors are developing. All of that butter sucks up the smoke flavor and the heat of the smoker helps reduce and thicken the sauce slightly. Making the sauce is very straightforward:

Combine all of the sauce ingredients except butter in a pot, and whisk over low heat. When mixed and the sugar is dissolved melt in the butter. Pull it off the heat, transfer to a heatproof pan or dish and set it in the smoker as its heating up to temp for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. You wont believe what how much flavor it picks up in such a short time.

Step 4: Secret Spray

The secret is in the sauce, right? Sort of. The big secret here is the liquid seasoning that is sprayed on the wings while they’re in the smoker. Spraying the wings accomplishes a few things that really make these wings stand out above the rest- It creates a thin film that seals in the moisture, helping the wings steam up a little inside. The overspray also hits the smoker walls/coals/heat source and steams up the inside a little as well. This thin film is created due to the sugars in the spray that caramelize under heat. That caramelized coating in turn becomes lightly crispy, and the flavors in the spray further season the wings without overpowering or competing with the sauce. The sugars in the sauce come from the apple juice and ketchup, and the bulk of the seasoning is generated from the vinegar, which also helps to tenderize the meat slightly. There is a little vinegar pungency and heat in the wings from the added hot sauce. Instead of Franks, for the spray I use a more astringent hot sauce like Tobasco or Cholula.

Mix all of the spray ingredients in the bottle, and give it a good hard shake before you spray to redistribute the solution. It will last a week or more in the refrigerator, but unrefrigerated the apple juice will begin to ferment within a day.

Step 5: Smoke 'em If You Got 'em

Bring your smoker up to temp (250degrees F), Remove the wings from the brine, and lay the wings out whole skin side up without touching one another on the grates. Skin side up refers here to the bulk of the skin facing up with the cut side of the joint facing down. Fats in and under the skin will slowly render out in the heat and baste the wings as they cook. give the wings a moderate spraying down and close the smoker for 30mins. After 30mins open the smoker and quickly spray down the wings again. They will be stating to turn a light golden color. Repeat after 30mins, and check the wings at this point with the thermometer. Insert the tip of the probe into the thickest part of the wing, the target temperature is 165degrees. If the wings are close or at this target temperature, spray them once more and reduce the temperature in the smoker to the smoke setting for 15mins. If you are using a manually wood/coal smoker, you want to drop your temperature and increase the smoke output for 15mins after the final spray.

Step 6: Toss Them and Eat Them. If You Need To, Reheat Them.

If the wings are being served right away, rewarm the sauce either on the stovetop or in the smoker while the wings are finishing. Using tongs, pull the wings out of the smoker and into a large bowl. Pour some of the sauce in the bowl and toss them in it to evenly coat them. Garnish with some thinly sliced scallion if you feel like really showing off. Reserved sauce can be sealed and refrigerated for a good while, but it is also excellent on other barbecue as well and likely won’t make it to the refrigerator. If you cooked the wings at an earlier time, they can be reheated in the smoker itself but there is an even better ultimate way to reheat them into the crispiest wings you've ever had. Bear with me, I know how odd this sounds.

Bring a deep pot with a little water to a rolling boil, place the wings in a steamer basket and lower them into the pot. Cover the pot and let the wings steam for 4 or 5 minutes. pull the steamer out, transfer them to a baking sheet or an airfryer and roast at 400degrees for 10 or so minutes until heated through. The skin will be shatteringly crisp and they wont be dried out inside.