Chicken wings...for 30 people?


 
M

Mary M

TVWBB Fan
I'm not sure this is doable, so I thought I'd ask the experts. A friend has roped me into cooking for a party with 30 guests who, by reputation, eat like starving lions (it's a college women's soccer team). What they want: smoked salmon, and chicken wings. We can do the salmon ahead of time and get that out of the way, but the wings, I'm not so sure. If you had to cook wings for 30, and you had a WSM with two racks and a fairly small (maybe 24" by 15" single layer) offset smoker, could you do it? How about if you added a third rack to the WSM? HOW would you do it? Obvi we can precook stuff, but then the chicken gets rubbery...so I dunno...

Thanks,
 
w0w! 30 flapper eeters...
Mary, not to scare you, butt i can put away probably 20 easy...
knowing how much i eet and how much others can consume wings, i would seriously consider making some ahead of time.
I made 44 just this past Sunday and reheated some yesterday and more reheated today. And they were just as good as they were on Sunday.
The major drag making tons of wings is: you need to constantly turn them. and turning enough wings for 30 folks, holeyballs... you'd be standing over at least two or three grills all the time!

Do you have any idea how many wings you are planning on cooking?
 
Wow is right. I'm not a big eater but I can eat 15 wings easy, multiply that by 30 and you will be cooking 450 pieces! Minimum! I would cook ahead of time and reheat on grills or see if you can rent a pit.
 
I agree with Jim. I would see about having people chip in to rent a pit. My local meat market rents one. I think it is reasonable. That's gonna be a lot of wings! We need some pics whatever you decide.
 
Mary,

I did 50 lbs of wings for a neighbor graduation party a few months back so I have a few questions. Other than the smokers do you have any grills? Do you need all of the wings done at the start of the party or will you continue to cook during it? Will you be making more than 1 type of wing? Will you have any helpers?
 
I can't seem to make wings cheaper than ordering them done. I can get really good wings for around 6 dollars a dozen around here. Or i can spend 23 bucks on 10 lbs frozen. Adding in sauce and time its better to just order it.
 
With the price of wings you might be better ordering them as Mike suggests. If I buy 40 lbs (250-300 wings) of wings at Rest Depot they are $1.99/lb.

We did an event last year where we were given wings to cook for people at the event. We cooked 800 wings on 2x 22", 1x 18" and a 26" OTG. We did it in 2 batches.

I have 3 racks in my 22 WSM and used a 4th sitting upside down on the middle rack and fit almost 200 wings on it. With all of the wings on 4 racks they took longer to cook. I would guess because the airflow would suffer. Now we have a Lang for cooks like that.
 
I would figure at least 10 wings per person...

I smoked some wings for the Super Bowl and they were the best wings I have ever eaten. I smoked them for about 2 1/2 hours and put them in the fryer for a couple of minutes and they turned out AMAZING. I had some sauce but did not use it because the wings were so good!

Good luck! :cool:
 
Mary, will there be an abundance of side dishes as well? Giving people lots of choices would definitely make things easier on you.
 
Something else to consider... I wanted to do wings a few weeks ago for a football game. I ended up doing chicken drumsticks, as Wegmans had wings at $4.29/lb, while drumsticks were $.99/lb. I did them like wings and they came out great. I was able to get the whole package (13 drumsticks) on one rack.
 
my favorite wing joint serves wings 8 per order (rarely 9-10), and we usually get 1-1.5 orders each. Two orders if they're on sale, & that's really more than I need.

Locally, I buy my wings fresh @ Harmons, 8-10 for <$5 ($2.99/#) - sold in either the wing or drummette pieces, so if you want both buy 2 packs.

They cook real easy on the WSM in under an hour, turning & crisping is not needed, so on your WSM, stack up some extra grates, crank the temp, & let it rip! Shouldn't have to mess with it for >35 minutes, I take an instant read thermometer & they're usually ~185 when they look good to me (I'll pull 'em lower sometimes).

My personal favorite sauce is Terriyaki Atomic (with ranch - the only flavor I order w/ ranch). Soy Vey Terriyaki, Dave's insanity (or tobasco, whatever), & a little xantham gum to thicken, then toss. 2nd favorite sauce is Frank's Red Hot w/ red pepper flakes thrown in, thicken w/ xantham gum.

If I'm feeling lazy and it's warm enough to open the windows & crank the evaporative cooler I'll cook them in the oven @ around 400F for ~45 minutes on the upper rack (direct) w/ foil on the bottom rack to catch the grease.

You could also smoke the wings ahead & deep fry them to reheat as in the Cooking Topics.
 
Ack, sorry to drop off the face of the earth, with so many good answers!

Anyway, here's what I got:

- There will be many side dishes and other food.
- They don't all have to be done right before the party, but it won't go that late (the team has a playoff match the next day) so the bulk of the food has to be ready at the start.
- We would be ok with pre-cooking a bunch and keeping warm.
- We will have my 18" WSM with two racks (I may do a mod to add another rack), a standard three-burner gas grill, and my friend's offset smoker which is maybe 24" x 15" (actually probably less).
- We hadn't decided about types, but I figured we'd probably buffalo some and do some some other way. Our usual method is to rub them with a modified Armadillo Willy rub and smoke the life out of 'em. Served up with no sauce, they are pretty popular.
- Oven is not out of the question to bail us out (SeriousEats has an oven-cooked wings recipe that, while not smoked, is very good and could be used to cook a bunch).
- The party starts at 6, we have all day to cook.

I figure we just roll up our sleeves and do it. JSMcDowell, you said 40 pounds was 250-300 wings -- is that wings or pieces?
 
You need a ranch kettle and the Daugherty method.

Personally I'd go 4 racks in the wsm then round up a 22 kettle for the rest. And use the offset to keep things warm.

For 4-5 racks I use ecb grates and put a rack on top of the charcoal ring then put the water pan on that rack. Put your 3rd food grate on top of the water pan. Put the 4th grate on some beer cans over the middle grate and a fifth on some beer cans over the top grate.

Good luck
 
Mary,

Pieces or party wings already cut into flats & drums. Your pcs / lb will vary greatly depending on the size of your wings. If you buy them at a place like rest depot it will give you a range per case.
 
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