Smoked Turkey Wings. How to Brine and Smoke. Not Just For The Holidays.

hey my friends I’m back in the kitchenand today I’m going to be prepping someturkey wings to smoke on the smoker I’vegot quite a few wings here and I’m inthe process right now I’m washing themthere’s still a little bit frozen andI’m going to go through and show youwhat my process is – smoked turkey wingsI have quite a few wings that I’m goingto be doing I think there’s probably atleast a half dozen or so of them hereand they’re average sized they’re nothumongous they’re not small and we’regoing to go through and prep them bydoing a couple of things and let me showyou what that is one of the things thatcan be problematic when you’re smokingpoultry chicken turkey is that the skinbecomes rubbery and very hard to biteintoso in competition barbecue we learn alittle trick that minimizes the rubberytexture of skin and makes it bitethrough and that is to poke little holesall in using a jacquard or one of thesetype of contraptions or even one ofthese this is just poke holes andsausages when you make it and by doingthat that allows a lot more of the fatthat’s in the skin to render out thusminimizing the amount of rubbery texturethat you’ll get so what we just gothrough them is I’ll take thiscontraption just go through the skinnow when you get to an area like hereand the connection between the drum andwe get I’ll just use a sausagecontraption and poke little holes andthen we’re ready to start the brineprocess there are a couple ofconsiderations to make when you’rebrining poultry and that number onebeing that you are adding a lot ofmoisture to the skin and that also maycontribute it to be rubbery in hard tocrisp up but the other thing it is sortof like risk versus benefit is that bypoking the holes in it yes it may allowa little bit more water in but it mayalso allow a lot more of that brinesolution to get in to the meat part I’mgonna do one more for you how muchyou’re paying it I don’t know I justsort of play by here what feels rightand hopefully that will be a tepee Ifinished cleaningwashing all of my turkey wings have gonethrough and I’ve done the little pokeholes in the skin in order to minimizethat rubbery texture texture of thatskin big notation here is that while Iwas doing thatpoking I tried not to go really deepinto the skin I only wanted to puncturethe skin part of the wings however Idon’t think it would matter if you evenwent into the skin a little bit andpassed the skin and into the meat itshouldn’t matter now I’m going to do mybrine my Brian consists of some majorcomponents number one being salt and I’musing the ratio of salt to water of onecup of salt to one gallon of water andin this container that I have the turkeywings in I previously measured out howmuch water it would take to cover thewings so that I would know how muchliquid brine to make and that came outto be about 16 cups that 16 cups being agallon so I’m going to be adding one cupof salt to the solution I’ve got about aquarter cup of a gobby in place of sugarand in addition I’ve got some chickenboo-yeah cubes for a little bit moreflavoring now because that does havesalt in it I did cut back a little biton the actual kosher salt that I’mputting in I’m using 1/4 cup of thischicken bullion so I took back 1/4 cupof salt to go into the brine mixture notknowing exactly how much salt is in thisbut I sort of approximated I don’t wantto be too saltyso they’re trying to use 3/4 cups ofsalt 1/4 cup of chicken bouillonI’m going to be using about a quartercup of agave and I’m gonna be adding 16cups of water I took the liberty also oftaking the salt and dissolving it withthe chicken bullion on some water sothat it’ll be ready and I think it’scooled off enough where now I can startmixing it’s not gonna take thiscontainer I’m gonna pour my mixture andto that my salt and chicken bullion themixture in there there’s still a littlebit more left here so I’m gonna I’vealready added this I’m gonna add mysugar my sugar source me in the agaveI’ll mix all that together make sureit’s all dissolved[Applause]the next step will be to pour this on mywings I’ve got my brine all dissolvedand I’ll pour it now over my turkeywings and we’ve got enough to make surethose wings are covered just get inthere little bit moredid I have my cover that I’ll place onit and this is going to go on therefrigerator overnight 24 hours maximumand we’ll put them on the smokertomorrow and we’ll get to smoking someturkey wings the turkey wings have beenin the brine for about 24 hours and I’mgoing to drain them and rinse them andthe reason I’ve got to rinse thembecause the concentration of salt thusin this brine is greater than what I’dlike the head of saltiness on theoutside of the bird let’s take this overto the sink[Music]then I’m gonna run cold water over dothat got a couple of trees set up thatI’m going to use to but the water justdrain off to them while I’m doing this Ihave my smoker set up have the tip setfor 275I’ve got some wood chunks on combinationof the cob and I’ve also got someHickory in thereI’m gonna finish recipes off and I’llcome back and we’ll continue drying themand then see you then the next step isto take these turkey wings you try todry them off as best you can have a lotof paper towels laying around to do thisthen we’re going to dry all of them gothrough a lot of paper towels here nowthat I have them fairly dried it wouldhave been preferable to probably haveput them in the refrigerator and letthem air food drive for a while but inthe interest of time to get these on thesmokerI just patted them dry now what I’mgoing to do is they’re going to takesome canola spray and it doesn’t have tobe canola it could be any oil that youdesireduck fat it could have been olive oiland we’re gonna spray these first alongthe back when I think back as opposed tothe front and that spray has a dualpurpose number one I help my little rubwhich is just salt and pepper stay on inaddition it will help while smoking todevelop the color of the turkey wingI’ve got salt and pepper here’s it’sabout two to one salt – pepper and I’mjust going to lightly coat these becauseremember they’ve been in a salty brineso they don’t need very much and we’rejust going to do a little dustingit’s raining salt and pepper then I’mgoing to turn them over and do them onthe other side got them all turned overto do the red sidewe’ll take our little salt just spreadit over like I said not a lot justenough to do a light coating now they’reready for the smokerI’ll go check the tip out there and thenwe’re ready to put them on another bigstep in this process is to make surethat you clean all the surfaces thatcame in contact with any of that poultryjuice and I also clean off where myhands may have been touching we don’twant any cross-contamination here[Music][Music]actually check in at the temperature onthe smoker out there I have it set for275 and it’s risen to 280 and a lot ofthat has to do because there’s nothingin the smoker and I don’t have a waterbath in there this is going to be a drysmoke some of these wings are largerthan others so I expect to tempt thecook time to vary a little bitlittle lonely baby there I’m gonna putthe temperature probe and one of thesewings and you’ll find the fat part ofthe drum and I don’t want it on bail Ijust wanted in me so I’ve got my turkeywings inside the smoker it’s set at 275I anticipate this is gonna be about atwo and a half hour cook hopefully nomore than three hours I’ve got somepecan and hickory wood in there with thewings my temperature probe also is setinside one of the drum nets and I havethis set for about 175 to warm and atthat point in time I can go in and checkI put it in actually one of themedium-sized one not the bigger onesthat the smaller ones so it’ll be anaverage and we’ll just check that lateron I’ll come back every so often we’lllook in see how they’re doing make surethe colors right and we should be goodto go turkey wingsdoing a real quick check on these wingslooking good so far I’m gonna rotatethem so that some of the ones that arebelow you can get darkened then once ontop don’t stay as dark okay we’re donehit 170 actually between 168 and 172 asan average I’ve got a nice color lookgood let’s take them on inside it’s kindof chilly out here there we have it heywe got some smoked turkey wings in hereand they are looking so goodtimewise it only took two hours to reachan average of like about 168 to 172 ishon each of them the colors magnificentthey I took a little bite off of one ofthe pieces that fell off and it sure wasyummythese can be satisfying treat for just asnack for a meal they’re moist juicy Ididn’t have to add any more oil to themso all these shiny texture that it hasis based upon the oil that I put on itinitially before putting in a smokerand from the wind ‘red fat in the skinso I’m thinking maybe piercing thelittle holes in the skin was a benefitfor that reason if not anything elseI can’t wait for hubby to have some allof these are just for himhe loves some turkey wings