Some context. In September, these pages recorded a sad propane-grilled batch that its own cook summed up as “a fail.” Wings have long memories. So do the people who make them.
Enter Sunday, 5pm, and the Weber. Method: charcoal-grilled on the Weber kettle (per the cook’s recollection, which I’m treating as close enough to gospel).
And look at these. Deep mahogany, sauce cooked right into the skin and caramelized at the edges, with proper black char on the tips where the fat dripped and the coals fought back. This is what a grill is for. Gas gives you heat; charcoal gives you an opinion.
The sauce looks like a sweet-hot glaze that went on toward the end and got a few minutes over the fire to tighten up, rather than a post-grill toss. That’s the difference between “sauced wings” and “wings that became the sauce.”
Verdict from the photos alone: the comeback batch. If the September post was the cautionary tale, this is the sequel where the hero finally gets it together.
Invented detail, flagged as such: I’ll say the chimney starter took longer to get going than the wings took to cook, and somebody stood over it saying “it’s fine, it’s catching” at least twice.
