Need advice on Chicken Legs (Quarters)

To my surprise we are not going to do the point from last week's brisket, but whole chicken leg quarters, which look as follows:



These are now already rubbed and put into the fridge, and they will go on my WSM together with another 6 slabs of Danish Back Ribs. I will fire up the WSM in about 5 hours, so that everything will be ready at noon.

This will be my very first poultry, and although I tried to read up on how to cook such chicken legs, I have no clue on how to do them.

As far as I have seen, overcooking, drying out, "rubber chicken" and getting crispy skin are major problems with poultry.

• What cooking temp and time make sense for this product?
• What's the target internal temp?
• How to keep the meat moist and nevertheless get crispy skin?
• Any spritzing recommended?

I guess due to shorter cooking time I will first put the ribs onto the upper grate for their first 3 hours, and then when these will be put in a closed casserole with apple juice onto the lower grate for 2 hours, I will put the open casserole with the chicken legs onto the upper rack, unless 3 hours are too much for them. Since I had good results with my ribs so far, I intend to keep the temp at the lower grate between 225 and 250°F, so it will be slightly hotter at the upper grate (although I still don't know what difference in temp is to be expected between the lower and upper grate in a WSM 22.5 with a foiled 18" clay saucer in a foiled water pan without water).

Any thought, hints and directions are thankfully welcome.

Bludawg said:

Dry them real good, give them a good coat of rub, crank the WSM to 325 put top on and leave them alone at 1.5 hrs brush on a little sauce put the top on the cooker close all the vents top & bottom give it about 30 min and they will be ready crispy skin moist & jucy

Click to expand...

Well, so that's a 2 hours cook then, but how can I combine this with the ribs, which will be 1 hour in foiled when the poultry has to go on, and what will the ribs say when I up the temp?

So if I do it like that, how much time will I have to give the ribs less, when at 325°F instead of 225-250°F?

What's the reason for closing all vents for the last 30 minutes, which will put the fire out? Never heard of that procedure before.

Already noon and the ribs to be pulled off shortly. I decided to not change the game plan for my ribs, so they were kept between 225 and 250°F for a total of 6 hours. I will fire up the WSM a second time today in the evening to cook the chicken legs as suggested.

Thanks for the hint, will look into brining.

We couldn't make the chicken legs today in the afternoon because of thunderstorms, so we'll most likely do them tomorrow. Since they are already rubbed since yesterday evening and put in our largest casserole in the fridge, there will be no brining involved this time.

Well, the chicken legs are already cooking since about 1 hour. The IT is now at 151°F, unfortunately the WSM is running a little too hot at around 356°F, because it is very windy today, which makes temp control very hard (wind is a problem quite often here, which is why I am thinking of ordering an iQue 110).

So I am following the procedure of 1.5 hours, then some saucing, and another 30 minutes with all vents closed.

Should I reduce the cooking time from 1.5 hours due to the higher cooking temp?
Or should I sauce and close vents once IT hits 165°F?