The ultimate guide to cooking chicken wings on the BBQ by fire content creator and teacher The Smokin' Elk.
Find out how to set up your kettle BBQ, best rubs to use, and what temperature to cook them to for crispy skin and a juicy centre.
Check out Elky's video below to watch him prepare his chicken wings three different ways and find out which one is tastier.
Chicken Wing Temperatures
- Chicken is safe to eat at 74 °C.
- Chicken wings are best cooked to 85-90 °C so the fat renders and the meat falls off the bone.
Ingredients
For the wings
- Wings — lots of! Always do more than you think you’ll need. Trust me, they will all go!
- BBQ rub(s) of your choice or even just salt & pepper (I used Smoked Club Spice Spice Baby and Beer Can Chick-Can)
- Your favourite sauce(s) – optional but desirable! (My favourite are Hottori Hanzo Hot Sauces)
You will need
- BBQ with a lid
- Charcoal (please don’t use instant light stuff!)
- Chimney starter
- Firelighters
- Lighter
- Cold beers
- Thermapen thermometer
Directions
I’m going to assume you have a kettle style BBQ with a lid but if you have a kamado-style BBQ then watch the video for an alternative method.
How to prepare chicken wings
- The first thing you’ll want to do is separate the flats from the drumettes. This is entirely optional but makes them easier to eat for you and your guests.
- Give them a dry with some kitchen towel. Wet, soggy chicken skin isn’t the best starting point if you want to achieve crispy chicken skin!
- Now take your wings and hit them with the rub or seasoning of your choice. Be sure to cover the entire wing for maximum flavour!
How to set up your BBQ for wings
- You’ll want a whole chimney of coals fully lit to get your BBQ as hot as possible.
- Once lit, dump them into one side of your BBQ and pop the lid on.
- Make sure the top vent is the other side of the coals, as that’ll draw the hot air over the chicken! You’ll want both your bottom vent and top vent fully open for this as you need a BBQ temperature of at least 200 °C, preferably closer to 250 °C.
How to cook BBQ chicken wings
- Once your BBQ is up to temperature, get the wings onto the grate and spread them out. You want these on the indirect side, away from the fierce heat of the coals.
- And that’s it! Stick your lid down, crack open a cold beer and wait. Give them a quick flip after 15 minutes, maybe swap some of them around to make sure they all cook evenly, then stick the lid back down.
- After another 15 minutes, grab your Thermapen and start probing a few of them. Chicken is safe to eat at 74 °C but I like to take my wings a bit further to make sure that meat just falls off the bone. 85-90 °C is the sweet spot for me! Once you hit this, take them off and stick them in a bowl ready to serve.
Optional: Add sauce to your chicken wings
- If you want to sauce them, now’s the time to do so. Or maybe leave half dry and put a selection of sauces out for your guests. Dig in and enjoy! You have precisely 5 minutes before they are all gone — I did warn you to make more than you need!
The Smokin' Elk
Fire Cooking Fanatic, BBQ School owner - @thesmokinelk
"I'm Elky, also known as The Smokin' Elk. I absolutely love cooking to fire and the Thermapen helps me up my game by cooking to the perfect temperature, every time. It's the one BBQ tool I wouldn't be without!"
