WSM 18.5 Advice. Cooking Cornell chicken and ribs at the same time.

[troymeister]

Hi all. I want to make Cornell Chicken and 2 slabs of ribs at the same time on the WSM. My thought is to put the ribs on the bottom rack and the chicken on the top so it can be basted with the marinade. How will this affect the ribs. I have never cooked different meats on the lower and upper racks.

My other thought is just cook the ribs on the top rack of the WSM and cook the chicken on the Weber 22.5 grill. I would rather use only one grill instead of two. I will do what I gotta do to make it work.

Advice is most welcome.

Troy

[Jon Solberg]

Troy Not to be at all negative. I'm not a big fan of doing chicken and ribs. I like to do my chicken above 300° more like 350° plus. and my ribs at 225°

Its doable but you may need to sear or torch the chicken to get some crispy skin.

It may also be a bark killer on the ribs with the extra moisture dripping. Honestly not sure on this point.

[troymeister]

I think I agree. I am leaning towards the 2 grill method.

[RonB]

What Jon said.

[fracmeister]

+1 here I think the optimal temperature delta is the problem I would face....How big a diff is there between the hottest and coldest part of the WSM? Two zone cooking is one thing but 350 and 225 may be tricky

[troymeister]

Meathead's recipe for Cornell chicken calls for it to be cooked at 225 till it reaches 150. Then seared on direct heat till the skin is crisp and the chicken is at least 165. Which is why I initially thought doing both at the same time might be a good idea. Then at the last minute I would fire up the other grill to crisp up the skin. My main concern is what would happen to the ribs below the chicken with all of the chicken stuff dripping on them. Might be a good thing... Might not.

[Jon Solberg]

I'm looking forward to hearing your results Troy. I think you're about to teach us something.

[troymeister]

Hi Jon, I ended up using 2 cookers. The ribs on the WSM and the chicken on the Weber 22.5. Everything turned out delicious, guests were awestruck.

The hardest part was I have only one working probe thermometer.

I forgot to take pics..We were so hungry.

[jamin35008]

I would like to awaken this thread and see if anyone has tried this recently? I'm planning on smoking a whole chicken butterflied and three racks of spareribs this Sat. I see that several people are not in favor of this method but I only have one 18.5 WSM, however I do have a grill but really wanted to smoke both. My plan was to start with the ribs for about 2hours at 225-250 and then add the chicken on the lower rack and bring the smoker up to 300. I will let the chicken go until it reaches about 160 inside and then pull it off and wrap it and let it rest if it beats the ribs. I will then pull the ribs once they are ready to break apart and sauce them up and finish them on the grill to caramelize the sauce.

What do you think? Please I don't mind and critiquing or advice on what I said above. Everyone's discussions on here have been more than helpful in the past I just couldn't find anything specific to cooking ribs and chicken together. BTW I love this site!

[pizza67]

Well, my initial thought about putting them on the lower rack and cranking the temp up is are you going to have water in the pan? Not easy to up the temp with the water, plus the chicken is directly over it.

Although, upping the temp after the ribs have been on for 2hrs should get everything done around the same time, which I assume is what you're shooting for?

[jamin35008]

Yes, I was shooting for getting both done around the same time. What if I cook everything at say 275-300* to split the difference between the 225* for the ribs and 350* for the chicken? If I run into a problem with rubbery skin on the chicken I could always put in on the grill after smoking or remove the water pan and finish directly over the coals?