My best vortex chicken wings with blue cheese salad

[austin87]

I made some really tasty wings vortex wings tonight. Second time I've done them this way but first time I was able to document with pictures.

Coals getting started. I used some leftover lump and fresh Stubbs along with 2 fire cubes in the vortex. It worked fine but took longer than just using the chimney, so I would do that next time.



2 pounds of wings and drums tossed with salt and pepper



Each wing gets a light dredging of flour, it really helps crisp up the skin



Coals ready and grill preheated



Wings on with a big chunk of pecan



25 minutes later (grill temp about 550-600 degrees)







A lot of the color that developed is from the smoke, they turn out lighter like fried wings if you skip the wood chunk. Really nice and crsipy, even the last ones that were sitting in the bottom of the sauce bowl for a while.

Tossed with Frank's RedHot mixed with melted butter and a little juice from some homemade picketed jalapeños. We made a salad out of the veggies served on the side with buffalo wings... Celery, carrot, green onion, with lettuce and tossed with blue cheese dressing.

[MacEggs]

Ya, that looks real good!  I need to try that flour dredge method next time.  Thanks for sharing.

[blksabbath]

Just salt and pepper?  So ridiculously simple and those look amazing.  I'm doing this for my sons b-day party this weekend with a ghetto-fabbed vortex.  25 minutes?  Any flipping or re-arranging?

cheers!

[SixZeroFour]

Just salt and pepper?  So ridiculously simple and those look amazing.

They really do look amazing and great tip on the flour austin87 - cheers

[jd]

those look really great, nice work

[Jack Fate]

I've done these this way about 4 times now . Thanks austin87
I put the soaked chunk of wood in the vortex. Very pleased with results[emoji481]

[Winz]

Wow - perfect!  That is exactly the recipe/technique I have been looking for.  The flour dredge is brilliant!  I imagine you can throw some of your favorite rub in with the flour to tweak the flavor profile. 

Did you rotate the pieces so they brown evenly?

Have you ever tried this with full size drumsticks?

Winz

[austin87]

I'm sure any rub or combo of spices in addition to salt and pepper would work really well (except sugar, I think it would burn).

@Winz @blksabbath  I rotated the lid about 90 degrees 3-4 times and that seemed to work well keeping the heat even. I didn't flip them. The tops were a little crispier than the bottoms but it wasn't much. By the time the tops were sufficiently crispy I was hungry and the wings were cooked through. I didn't want to overcook them but 5 minutes on the other side wouldn't have been a bad idea.

I've done kettle fried chicken with thighs and legs but that was more of a batter than a dredge. I think they would work well but I might go a little cooler, maybe 400-450 so the outside isn't overdone before the inside of the bigger piece gets cooked through.

[austin87]

Can't believe I forgot the plated pic

[THUNDERDOME]

Awesome....Looks nailed

[WNC]

Awesome! Thanks for the tip about flour, I'm gonna try this soon!

[dazzo]

Thanks for the flour tip.

Tried it on some legs and a cut up breast. Came out very good...

[AcrossFromHoss]

How hot did your lid temp get? Last time I filled my vortex like that I burnt my beard off leaning in to smell the smoke love the flour method @MrHoss you seeing this?

[austin87]

@AcrossFromHoss my dome term pegged while preheating then after adding the wings it stayed right about 550 for the remainder of the cook. I would estimate I used about 3/4 chimney of Stubbs. Have used K Comp before and that I think is a little hotter.

And yes I have had a good swath of arm air immediately incinerated while getting a little too close to the vortex the with my tongs 

[jcnaz]

The wings look great, but where is this blue cheese salad?