I've had my PG500 for a few months now and have yet to make chicken wings on it. I'm planning on making some tomorrow and would appreciate any recommendations on how to best make them on the PG500.

Realize that I only had access to this unit for 2 weeks when doing a Performance Test 5 years ago.  And I did not even do wings. Nice thing is we have several Members that do have this unit, so they will come in with some real world advice...me, I would...

Brine them for about 12 hours, then I would put a char on them in zone 1, just a little char.  Then I would cook them in zone 4 till they were about 190° (I like them real tender). then I would put in pan, toss in a favorite sauce and then char them again on zone 1 to finish!

I've done them a couple ways, and liked them all. What I find to be the most straight away method is to fill zone 4 with them and let them smoke for 45 minutes set to 170*, then crank it up to 300* and let them finish and get nice and crispy.

I have a source for fresh jumbo's at a good price and they go an hour during the 300* session to finish, the large frozen wings I get from Costco are done in about 40 minutes during the final phase.

I don't think there's much difference  in technique between different pellet grills. I like to first season them with salt and let them dry on a rack in the fridge for about 12 hours. This let's the skin dehydrate so it gets extra crispy. For really crunchy wings, you can sprinkle on some baking powder. Then cook in pellet grill at 425-450 for 20 minutes, flip and cook another 15 minutes. Then out and toss with sauce while still hot.

Here is my go to party wing recipe (25 wings).

1/2 Cup Hot Sauce (Adjust to preference)
16oz Zesty Italian Dressing
1/2 Cup Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 Cup Soy Sauce
Rub

1. Mix all wet ingredients
2. Marinate chicken wings for at least 3 hours. I usually do it overnight.
3. Pat wings dry and apply rub
4. Cook 275 for 2 hours or until at least 165 degrees

Thanks for the replies, these all look great. I'll probably end up trying all of these at some point, for tomorrow I think I'm gonna go with Bentley's method. 

Make sure to take some pics & post.

Yes, if possible, I would love to see if I gave you good advice on the unit...or screwed you over...

Wings came out really good following Bentley's suggestion, nice and crispy. One thing I would do differently next is I would finish the wings on zone 1 in smaller batches. I crammed all the wings in one go to finish them, it was hard to keep track of them all. A few wings ended up getting burnt to a crisp and a few others had almost no char.

 



 

 

 

I think it is time to cook more wings 

Since they are imperfect, just ship that batch to me because they look terrific!!!

Glad they were enjoyable, and that you learned some things about your pit!

Apollo- those look great!  What brine recipe did you use?  Also, what temperature did you set the grill to?  I think I might have to make some up this weekend for football watching!

One thing I have found with the PG 500 char-broiler, there is a hot spot right of center to the far right edge where the stainless partition transitions into zone 4 the fan concentrates heat into that area coming up and out of the fire bowl.

Chicken wings placed there for more than a few seconds become crispy critters about as fast as you can drop them, take a breath and turn them again.

Apollo- those look great!  What brine recipe did you use?  Also, what temperature did you set the grill to?  I think I might have to make some up this weekend for football watching!

I dry brined them using just kosher salt, for about 12 hours before putting them on the grill. The grill was set to 325 throughout the entire cook. I also made these for football Sunday, started cooking around noon and they were ready to go by 1.