One of my largest challenges in the world of barbecue so far has been perfecting chicken wings. We tangled with and botched this menu item more times than I'd care to admit, but after many failed and rubbery skinned attempts, we have come up with a process that works well for us! If you're where we were in the recent past, either making chicken wings that come out with rubbery skin or some other unappealing outcome, hopefully this process will help you!
Note: If the rub you use has sugar in it, you should be careful about burning. Sugar burns at higher temps, so you might see better results by just smoking the wings naked without rub applied and then toss them in rub at the end.
Ingredients
1 pack of uncut chicken wings. If you get precut, that's fine but you can skip the cutting steps.
Your preferred dry rub(s). We used Kinders Lemon Pepper rub and Fire and Smoke Chicka Licka Bam Bam.
Baking Powder
Instructions
Lay out each chicken wing with the inside of the wing facing up on a cutting board
Take a knife and find the groove between the upper and lower part of the wing and cut along that groove. The knife should cut through it pretty easily, so if you're struggling to cut through, you might need to adjust the place you're cutting. Repeat the same process for the lower part of the wing and the wing tip.
Repeat this process for all wings.
Take a cookie tray and put paper towels on it. Lay all wings on the tray, and then take more paper towels and pat dry each wing as much as you can.
Once you're done drying, take the tray and put in your refrigerator for several hours.
After they're done drying, take the tray out.
Put a few wings in bowl and sprinkle baking powder on them while tossing the wings. Do so until wings have full coverage and a dry look to them. Set the wings on rack and repeat until all wings are covered.
Then take a few wings at a time and add them back to the bowl and sprinkle dry rub on them, toss the wings until fully covered, and then add back to rack. Repeat until you coat all the wings in your preferred dry rub.
At this point, I let them rest for a few minutes.
Preheat your smoker to 250 degrees.
Let them cook for about 30 minutes and then flip. Cook for another 30 and check doneness.
At this point I turn my smoker up to 400, flip the wings and cook for 10 minutes. Then flip again for a final 10 minutes. Keep your eyes on your wings at this stage so they don't overcook and blacken. If you notice they are turning black, go ahead and pull.
Once wings look crispy you can pull them off!
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