Thoughts on smoking ribs the day before a party

I'm hosting a big party this weekend where I plan to smoke about 10-15 racks of ribs and 2 pork butts. Given the limited capacity of my WSM 18, I'm thinking of smoking the ribs the day before the party, storing them over night, and then throwing them on the BBQ the day of the party where I will sauce them up.

Has anyone ever done this before? Or have any input on this method?

I'm assuming storing them in the fridge overnight would be best as I'm not sure how they would keep in an empty cooler.

I would do the pulled pork ahead of time, shred it and then rewarm/sauce it the day before. Pork butt will be much more forgiving of holding and rewarming than the ribs. Once you've broken down the collagen into gelatine it will never come back from chilled the way it is when it first comes out of the cooker, and your bark will suffer as well.

Darrens, advice is good. I used to do these big family cooks and I definitely did the pork butts ahead of time. Reheating with a little chicken broth and some sauce works great. Since you are doing 10-15 racks of ribs, that could take 2 or 3 cooks as as well, so you might consider doing some of those the day before, too. I would do the racks just short of being completely done, wrap them tightly in foil and refrigerate them overnight. You can reheat them in the foil in the oven or on the grill, then unfoil them and finish them with some sauce. A word of caution about reheating ribs in the oven -- shuffle them around fairly often and don't jam them in or else they will heat unevenly.

Jeff