Cooking With Beer: Beer Brined and Smoked, Spicy Chicken Wings

 This past weekend we celebrated our dog Bradley’s first birthday. We had a few friends over for a fun, and socially distant party that included good times with great food and beer. Now those who know me, know that I love to cook, and I have been adding beer to recipes for a long time. A recipe that I have been perfecting for roughly a year now is my smoked beer brined chicken wings. They are sweet, spicy, and smokey and if you have the patience, they are delicious. Here is what you will need for approximately three pounds of wings (this would also work for drumsticks or thighs as well):

For the Brine:

6 cups of water

¼ cup kosher salt

¼ cup dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

2 cloves of garlic

1 small knob of ginger

24 ounces of brown ale

One tray of ice

 

For the wings:

3 tablespoons kosher salt

3 tablespoons black pepper

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

1 teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon chili powder

3 tablespoons olive oil

 

Steps:

Bring the water to a boil and add the sugar, salt, and peppercorns. Next peel and crush the garlic and roughly chop the ginger and add them to the boiling water. Let the water boil for about five minutes and then take it off the heat. Next, add the mixture to your brining container of choice then add the ice and beer*. Once the mixture is cold then add the chicken wings and brine for approximately 12-24 hours.

*For the beer, I used ‘Old Brown Dog’ a brown ale from Smuttynose. A very good brown ale with nice malty notes and flavors that nicely complements the brown sugar to give the meat a little extra sweetness and juiciness. This will allow you to turn up the heat when you sauce your wings.

Next, take the wings out of the brine and then pat them dry and place them on a tray lined with paper towels and let them sit, uncovered in the refrigerator for another 6-12 hours.  

Before you take the wings out of the refrigerator, in a bowl combine the salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, white pepper, and chili powder. Then place the spice rub into a shaker.  Next, place the wings in a large bowl and add the olive oil and toss to coat. Place the wings on a tray and then coat each side of the wings in the spice mixture and let sit for 15 minutes.

Now I smoked these wings on my pellet smoker, you could roast or fry them but these wings on the smoker are nearly perfect. I smoked them with hickory and cherry pellets at 275 degrees Fahrenheit for roughly two hours, flipping the wings every 30 minutes.  I typically have a small water pan in my smoker as well. 

After the wings have been on the smoker for 90 minutes, take the wings off the smoker and place them in a large bowl and toss them in your hot sauce of choice. I made a sweet and spicy Thai style hot sauce (that recipe to come) and then put them back on the smoker for the last 30 minutes of cooking for the sauce to get tacky. If you like a saucier wing, you can toss the wings in sauce after they have completed cooking.

These wings are a big hit, the perfect combination of sweetness from the brine and spice from the rub and the sauce. Give these a try at your end of summer BBQ.

Every so often I will post a recipe but if you are looking for a great blog with beer recipes, check out The Beeroness. Every so often I will look to her for inspiration when I try to add beer to a recipe. Definitely give her a view