Pre cooking wings

[mattyredsox]

Hi all. A bit of a conundrum.
My kid’s school is having a festival where I expected to be cooking 150 wing drummettes. I have two Webers’ and expected to just use them - my Lang 48” is not mobile.
The orders came in, and I’ll be doing 300+ so I got another guy with another Weber.
Today it was announced that there’d likely be another 100 folks coming and could I handle that. As we have a three and a half hour window for the wings I told them that that would really be pushing it. Still I’d like to help them out.
My original plan was to thaw next Wednesday to Thursday. Brine on Friday and grill on Saturday.
Now I’m wondering.
I’ve got a Lang 48 not doing anything, but I’m wondering if I can brine Thursday to Friday and then precook on the Lang friday evening and reheat on Saturday, knocking the cook time by nearly two thirds on the day. (Normally my Weber wings take 30 minutes indirect and I’m assuming ten minutes for the reheat). These don’t need to be competition quality, but I’d really like them to taste good.
My brine is a salt, vinegar, water, Goya Sazón mix. I usually just add sauce after cooking while warm.
Advice, suggestions, ideas please!
(Also, I live in Japan, and they don’t have ovens (seriously), or turkey fryers available. Boiling is also not an option).

 

[ShadowDriver]

Do you, by chance, have a stove or some-such available on-sight and in your cooking area?

I've cooked near 1000 wings, in shifts, on a grill, then transferred to various sauces to hold on a gas stove/or "hob" (UK) before serving 6 at a time. Ours was a crappy little 2-burner job that ran on a standard LP gas bottle, and worked wonders.

This served us very well as we could meter things with a little holding time (5-10 min) in the sauce(s) before we'd dish them out.

Just a thought/idea to consider.

P.S. - Curious whereabouts in Japan. I'm a prior inhabitant of Okinawa.

 

[Whisky]

I don't see anything wrong with that.... However for the re heat I would drop them in a pot of hot oil on the Webers and flash fry them quick, vs grilling them. Either or would work but I think the oil would maybe not dry them out as much and make them seem fresher. im a fan of smoked then fried wings.

 

[mattyredsox]

I don’t have a stovetop available. I’ll be in a field.

 

[mattyredsox]

Do you, by chance, have a stove or some-such available on-sight and in your cooking area?

I've cooked near 1000 wings, in shifts, on a grill, then transferred to various sauces to hold on a gas stove/or "hob" (UK) before serving 6 at a time. Ours was a crappy little 2-burner job that ran on a standard LP gas bottle, and worked wonders.

This served us very well as we could meter things with a little holding time (5-10 min) in the sauce(s) before we'd dish them out.

Just a thought/idea to consider.

P.S. - Curious whereabouts in Japan. I'm a prior inhabitant of Okinawa.

I’m in Hiroshima.

 

[ebijack]

Just a thought or two.
Smoke the wings on your lang to just under the IT temp you like.
Hold in a cooler/coolers with towels. Add aluminum wrapped heated stones/bricks to help keep the temps near 150*F for a longer time. 4 or 5 + hrs if needed. Heat the stones/bricks on the smoker works having the stones/bricks slowly get to temp while smoking the wings.
Take your webers, fire them up once at your destination. Start grilling the wings to get crispy skin. You should be able to handle that many wings using the 2 webers as needed. Depending size of wings. A 22" grate can handle 5lbs of wings easily. And only take a couple minutes to get crispy.
Or if possible, could you build a ground fire at the location. Use some stones/bricks for height. Like camping, take and lay your lang grates across the stones and grill like camping. All done in one batch to finish. If needed.

 

[SmokinAussie]

^^^ Done this before. Probably the best way by far. You are brining those wings so you do not need to precook them over 145-150. They will hold nicely and won't dry out in aluminium pans wrapped in a towel and placed in a cooler / esky.

Get a good heat on those Webers and then just color up the wings. Added bonus. Japanese don't like overcooked chicken and the quality of the chicken you get means it's best not to take it to 180-190 etc.

Good luck with it.

 

[pharp]

Do you have access to a fish cooker? We do our super bowl wings each year this way. We smoke them ahead of time until done. Then on game day we give them a 2 min fry as customers come to pick up. Works really well.

 

[mattyredsox]

Some great ideas! Thank you for the recommendations.

 

[TravelingJ]

Do you have access to a fish cooker? We do our super bowl wings each year this way. We smoke them ahead of time until done. Then on game day we give them a 2 min fry as customers come to pick up. Works really well.

When you say done, you mean fully cooked? Then you chill them, and it only takes 2 minute in the fryer to reheat/crisp them? I would like to take them to a family fish fry in a few weeks and was thinking of a similar method.

 

[Smoke Rising]

I do a similar method almost every time I have my smoker out. I will season wings and fully cook them to temp on the smoker. I place them in a disposable aluminum pan and then refrigerate until later. Then when I want to cook them, I dip them in a combination of melted butter and hot sauce and place them on my Weber kettle. They heat through fine and are killer with the crisp skin and char they get.

I haven't had mine dry out, but they are always sauced when reheating and I'm not sure yours will be. If you use a sugary sauce (like some BBQ) they can tend to burn before heating through.

 

[pharp]

When you say done, you mean fully cooked? Then you chill them, and it only takes 2 minute in the fryer to reheat/crisp them? I would like to take them to a family fish fry in a few weeks and was thinking of a similar method.

That is what I do. I normally take my wings to 190 or so, but when I do it this way I usually pull them off at about 175...basically once they are done and have some color. Works really well for us and it makes it super easy to do a lot of wings since on cook day you only need about 2 min/batch.