Two meat combo questions

[Bill C. (Cappy)]

OK today I'm going to try to pull off my first two meat smoke. I have a 6.6 lbs chicken and a rack of pork spare ribs. My last chicken was a 4 hour smoke and my last rack of ribs was about a 5 hour smoke. I am planning on putting the ribs on the lower rack will that decrease the cook time? If so I will put both on at same time. Just wondering. Thanks!

 

[John09]

Just a food safety reminder, generally letting poultry drip onto anything other than more poultry is bad. In this case your ribs will probably be cooked past 160 and be safe but be careful not to let yourself get into a bad habit. You might accidentally do it over a pork loin that you pull at 140 some time or the item on the lower rack might finish early and be left dripping with chicken juice.

Now that said, I wouldn't do it anyway, the chicken dripping on your ribs is going to keep your bark from being beautiful. As far as temp variations between racks, do you run water or an empty water pan?

 

[Bill C. (Cappy)]

Very valid points that I had not thought of!
Plan B! One big chicken for dinner tonight

Then my first two rack smoke on the WSM tomorrow afternoon!

Thanks for the advice, man I love this forum!!!

 

[K Kruger]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">generally letting poultry drip onto anything other than more poultry is bad. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Sorry, but this is not true. Oft-repeated, but not based in food science. First, as long as both are cooked to safe temps both are safe. Second (in the scenario you note), the internal temp of the pork below is immaterial (it is material for the pork itself, but not for the chicken juices dripping from above). The salient issues are the temp of the surface of the chicken at the point where the juices exude, the air temp in the space where the juices drip, and the surface temp of the pork below (where the juices will land). If any of these temps are >160? (and one can presume they are) the juices are pasteurized in seconds.

That said, I almost never combine meats in a cook. The rubs are different (I don't want the rub flavors from above dripping onto the meat below), the quantity of smoke I want is different (for chicken I use less than 20% of the quantity I use for ribs, if I use it at all), sometimes the wood is different.