ribs and cluck


 

Jeffery

TVWBB Member
I'm looking for suggestions on doing ribs and chicken for some friends, I have the timing for ribs down, whats the best route for both on 18.5
 
I've only done this a couple of times, but one option is to smoke your ribs on the wsm until they look the way you want, then foil and finish in the oven while you smoke the chicken. (I quickly swap out my foiled ECB pan for the Weber OE pan and add hot water to it for smoking the chicken.) You might want to use a sauce or glaze like Danny Gaulden's that you can simply paint on the ribs after they're done in the oven.

If you decide to do both at the same time on the cooker, I'd cook low-n-slow somewhere in the 250-275* range, depending if spares or backribs, water in the pan, ribs on the top rack, and put the chicken on the bottom rack sometime mid-cook, depending on what exactly you're cooking. If needed, you might just add one small chunk of cherry or apple to make sure the bird gets some smoke, too.
 
Thanks for the reply Dave, my spares have been coming in at 5hrs give or take at 260+ I've not used the bottom grate yet, so I'm thinking 3hrs spares on top then put the chicks on the bottom and go for another 2 hrs or so I will be going waterless
 
That oughta work just fine.

I mentioned using water in the pan because it really helps in keeping the bone/exposed meat side of smoked chicken from drying out, assuming your butterflying or splitting chicken(s). Just try to keep as much of the birds over the pan and see if you don't notice a difference. I went a whole year cooking chicken "dry" in my wsm at 300*+ before I found this out for myself, and I also prefer to use water in the pan when not foiling ribs. Added humidity does indeed help meats with lots of surface area from drying out as quickly.

Anyway, if cooking whole birds, the juiciest BY FAR that I've had were last week. It's Chris Lilly's recipe, but the idea is to cook small (3.5lb and under) broilers in 9"X5" loaf pans, with some added moisture, like the worster and apple sauce slather in the recipe. You just don't want to cook over 300* or the apple sauce will get too dark, and it's a good idea to flip the chicken in the pans during the cook.

Good luck with the cook!
 

 

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