First Time Chicken Wings

I love doing wings on the grill and then toss them in Texas Pete sauce after they are done (with about a half stick of butter melted in). Everybody loves them. I spice them up with cayenne and Old Bay. I'm gonna try them in the CS like you did. Congrats! How was the skin? Was it chewy or just fine? On chicken breasts I've done a time or two, I have taken the skin off after the smoke as it is a bit rubbery. The chicken has turned out great for me but I'm trying to figure out how to get the skin to turn out better. Maybe the your marinade would help with that!? Regarding the jerky, how do you typically do that and what type of meat do you use? I want to try that out too. Thanks!

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Originally posted by FlatOut:
[qb]...but I'm trying to figure out how to get the skin to turn out better. [/qb]

Getting chicken skin crisp has to involve higher temps than you can get in the home CS's. I tried a lot of ways, but it still takes a dry/hotter temp to get them crisp.

Oils, mayo, etc won't help like higher temps will.

Actually I ate one of the wings without crisping it and it was very good, not rubbery. I don't think the skin on the wings is quite as thick as the breast and thighs.

However, I do love crispy skin, so I took the rest of them right from the smoker, and put them on my gas grille, medium/high, for about 5 minutes. They came out great.

It's possible that the marinade helped somewhat, but it's the first time I've done these, so not sure.

As for the jerky, I've been making that for over a year now, and always use Qdogg's Jerky 101 method, which can be found by doing a search in "Best of Cookshack" Archives. It even has pictures to show you how he loaded it up. It takes me 5 hours to smoke a batch at 225 deg, but worth the wait.

The one thing I did change was instead of using tooth picks as he did, I use those long bamboo skewers they use for shrimp etc. which hold about 12 strips of beef each.

As for meat, I use only bottom round roast. I did use top round once when it was on sale, but went back to the bottom round.

I also bought Hi-Mountain's Jerky kit, which comes with jerky knife, cutting board, 4 different flavors of cure, and a jerky screen. I've since bought some different flavors of jerky cure from them, and to be honest, I like them all.

I've had people who say they never liked jerky, tell me that they love what comes out of my smoker, and it goes fast.

Hope this helps...feel free to contact me if you need anything else.

Let us know how everything comes out....