Foods with Disimilar Cook Times

[oakville smoker]

Hello all

Me again fresh from another successful smoke, this time back ribs and chicken drums.  Both turned out great but were finished on the BBQ.  Which leads me to my question:

When cooking foods with differing smoke times and cooking times, how do you best accommodate the different times?  The ribs needed 6 hours, the drums needed 2 and a half.  You cant smoke the ribs forever so there is still smoke for the drums. Probably not a good idea to smoke the drums, take them out and put them back in again when the ribs are close to done.

I was careful to get the ribs above the chicken so the chicken was not dripping raw juice on the ribs.

Maybe this is just a challenge with this cooking method.  Or maybe you have to be creating a meal based on similar cook times.

Thanks much for the help I know I am going to get here.

[OU812]

oakville

When I smoke a Turkey breast and chicken I put the turkey in with 3 hr smoke and when there is 2 hr left I put in the chicken.

When the chicken is 160 F I pull it out then FTC till the turkey is done. I have one of those five day coolers and everything stays hot.

Works for me

[Habanero Smoker]

I do the same as OU812.

As far as needing to place the chicken on the bottom to avoid dripping is not necessary. I do the opposite when I am cooking for others. Some of my friend don't eat pork (I not talking about a strict kosher diet). To respect their wishes I will place the chicken on top. You only have to worry about cross contamination on raw food; unless you are placing the chicken in the smoker shortly before you remove the ribs. If the ribs and chicken are going to be fully cooked, there is no concern with cross contamination.

[oakville smoker]

Thanks guys but I am still unsure.....

If ribs require lets say 7 hours in the smoker, 2 plus hours of that time with smoke and the chicken requires 2 hours of smoke / cook time, I assume what we are saying here is put the chicken in with 2 hours to go and either add more smoke or go smokeless ?

Not trying to make this complicated

[Caneyscud]

Oak,

The answer is not complicated, but is cause of more head-scratching because of the technique of limiting smokes and finishing smokes in the oven.  In a stickburner it is not as complicated.  You either put in all at the same time and remove as they get done, or delay start times so all finishes at the same time.  The answer with a Bradley depends on how much smoke you want on each.  If you were going for 3 hours smoke on the ribs and an additional 2 or 3 hours in the Bradley, and say 1 hour of smoke on the drums with an additional 1.5 hours in the Bradley, then you put the chicken in 2 hours into the rib smoke and take them out in 2.5 hours later - they get one hour of smoke and an additional 1.5 hours of cooking.   If you are going to finish the ribs in the oven, take them out and continue the drums in the Bradley. - or finish the drums in the oven also.

You just have to watch IT.  IF you preheat the Bradley to 250 then put in say 5 drums, the temp won't take long to raise up and stabilize at 250.  However, if you put in a big load of ribs and in 2 hours want to put in the 5 drums, the temp might not have recovered to 250 yet.  Not a big problem usually, it will just lengthen your cook time, but you won't know now much without watching the drum's IT or otherwise knowing when drums are done.

I have had some smokes where I almost got out the Suretrack or Microsoft Project to do a CPM on them.  Same with my first lox smoke, getting it scheduled around everything I had to do those 2 days. 

[OU812]

What canney said.

Smoker set at 250 F, 3 hr smoke. Ribs go in at 12:00 smoke rolling at 1:30 the chicken goes in. When the chicken IT is 160 F pull it off and FTC. Then finish the ribs, at approx 5:00 check the ribs to see if the meat is pulling back or a tooth pick inserted without resistance.

[westexasmoker]

Welcome to the forum Oak!

Caney's got ya headed in the right direction...Using the house oven will give you an upperhand when doing several/large smokes with different meats, in essence the BS is just that once the smoke is done, just basically your house oven.  So let's say you get your ribs smoked, pulled and into the house oven, then you could pop in a couple racks of chicken a rack of ABT's and maybe a rack of sausage and continue on with your smoke.  Just a thought for ya, in the smoking world there is no wrong or right way!  Good luck to ya and keep us posted!  I did mention to use mesquite, did'nt I!   ;D

C

[oakville smoker]

Ahhhh   thank you so much.  I have almost a zen like understanding of how to work with disimilar cook times now.  Its all logical but with the level of paranoia around sross contamination, food half cooked and finshed later, well its better safe than sorry.

I was laughing my head off when you referred to using project management software to manage a smoke.  I work with PMs all day along and sometimes I really could see  them doing something like that.  I have more of personality that does not care for rules, formality, process etc. 

But this was good and  thank you for it.  Now to plan my US Open smoke.  If Tiger is in contention I will be cooking to ashes ut of mere frustation.  If not, the possibilities are endless.