Help with chicken sausages & chicken wing cook

[MeatAndPotatos]

Brother is moving out of town this week and we are having a BBQ as a going away.
Apparently for some terrible reason, he gave up meat other then chicken and fish for lent.

So he said he wants chicken wings and chicken sausages. Also going to make some chicken breast for my mom.

I have never made either wings or sausage.
Wings I feel like I have a handle on though... Never been a big sausage guy (the fennel/anise is not something I can get into)...

So looking for advice mostly on the chicken sausage, but also on sides as well as what equipment to use...

I'll have a jumbo joe and a gas cooker, and if need be I can bring a 14in wsm. Cooking for about   6 people but 2 will probably just have chicken breast.

[austin87]

I like to toss the wings in flour and cook them indirect with really high heat. They turn out really crispy.

Are you going to make the chicken sausage yourself or just grill up some pre-made ones?

If you plan on making them yourself you will need to go with dark meat or they will be drier than cardboard. The grocery store also probably has some ready to eat chicken sausages - just warm them up on the grill and get some grill marks on them. If you find raw chicken sausage I would smoke it indirect until it's cooked through and then get some grill marks on them over indirect heat.

Also - it's generally only Italian sausage that have fennel/anise. There are lots of other flavors.

[austin87]

Of course the other option is to make some Moinks (bacon wrapped meatballs) that are so dang good your brother comes to his senses.

[mrbill]

in respects to your brother's wishes for lent, be careful about using pre-made sausage as there might be some pork or beef fat in the mix or use a beef/pork casing. if you can't find any pre-made chicken sausage w/o beef or pork added, try turkey sausage or meat replacement(ie-vegetarian/vegan) sausage. if you can find some suitable sausage, do them beer brat style. as for the wings, Austin87 is right. flour them, then do high-heat indirect(a well proven combo, many threads here to back it up esp when a vortex or similar method is involved) and then either toss in sauce after they're done or baste with sauce/glaze for last 10min of cook time.

[MeatAndPotatos]

Thanks guys, didn't get pictures but all went well. Made a couple loafs of bread that everyone seemed to enjoy, smoked some uncooked chick sausages to 160 (finished way faster then I expected at ~220... about an hour), threw them in the freezer to cool down then let my brother finish them up on the propane grill.

I maybe floured the wings a little early... Left them uncovered in the fridge but they didn't dry out too much and the flour got real soaked in. Floured them again right before throwing them on.

Filled the back half of the jumbo joe with mostly briquettes and a little lump held back with a charcoal rail. Loaded full of wings, and only got a little more then half of them on before I totally ran out of room.

So got the WSM going again (had just shut it down after smoking the chicken sausage), got all the coals screaming pulled the water pan and put the wings on top rack with no heat shield and all vents 100%.

The JJ wings started about half an hour earlier and looked amazing, the WSM wings looked a little lack luster and weren't really browning, just turning tan... lol. So since they were staggered by about 30 min when the JJ finished up I pulled the wings from the WSM and tossed them on the JJ and got them looking mostly like I wanted.

All were good, but since I forgot to do direct heat on the JJ at the end, the first set of wings could have had crispier skin... But the ones cooked on the WSM high up over the coals for the first half were AWESOME. Very crispy skin, was a little surprised they ended up being the better batch but makes sense with no direct heat for the JJ only batch.

And with the lack of room on the JJ, and the fact that we do most family events at Moms, and them wanting me to cook more and more I talked them into stashing a 22in OTG somewhere for me to use when I come over.