more ribs=more time?

[Cory Musser]

I'm entering my first competition tomorrow. It is a local rib cookoff put on by a private club. I'll be using a double stacked 18" with four cooking racks. I think I can stuff 16 rolled racks of St. Louis cut spares in there(I hope anyway). My question is, will my cooking time increase with that amount of meat? I did three racks in it yesterday with it stacked and they took about 5-5 1/2 hrs at around 250. The temp did spike a bit for just a little while when I forgot to check the water level. We have to start serving @5:00pm. I'm worried about when my start time should be. Anyone have any experience with that many ribs in a WSM? Thanks for any advice.

 

[Russ Hazzon]

I'd reconsider rolling the ribs and use racks instead. The rolled racks tend to remember the curve and make it more difficult to properly cut for a nice looking display. You can get several full racks in the WSM, but the ends will burn. Chances are you won't be serving the ends during a competition cook anyway.

 

[Larry Wolfe]

The cooking time won't necessarily increase, but may but minimally. The thing that may change is how long it takes to get your WSM up to temp with the extensions and mass of meat.

When I do alot of spares or loinbacks, I use rib racks and can get 8-10 full racks of spares (4-5 on each grate) cut in half and 12-14 racks of loin backs whole (6-7 on each grate) .

Spares

And the Loinbacks

 

[Michael G. (Canada Mike)]

The more cold or even room temperature meat you put on the longer it will take to get back to your temp. if it's a lot, you may want to allow an extra half or full hour to make up for the quantity. That's assuming that you're clocked that closely.