Food positioning

[cleanuphitter]

Hi all!  Newbie here.  After purchasing a Bradley about 6 weeks ago and following these forum posts, I'm more than impressed with the product and the posters here on this site.  Everyone seems to be friendly and helpful.

On Super Bowl Sunday, I'm engaging in my most aggressive usage of the Bradley to date.  Over 27 lbs. of meats ranging from chiken breasts, tri-tip, a roast, and pork loin.  

My question is:  What is the best way to use the racks?  I'm thinking of putting the tri-tip on the top rack, chicken below that, then the pork, and the roast on the bottom.  Does it really matter, though?  My marinades are from the S&S book and vary by meats.  Off the top of my head, the chicken marinade is the only thing that is severely different from the others (it involves lemon juice).  Should I worry about flavors dripping onto others, or does it really matter when all is said and done?

One more question.  Due to the amount of meat involved here, should I anticipate longer cooking times that usual?  Would it be a lot?  

Thanks for all your help!

DC

[tsquared]

Welcome to the forum!
Sounds like a good Superbowl party! Bill and others with more experience will probably want to chime in here but a couple of things to keep in mind are with that much meat you want to make sure you take it out of the fridge for an hour to bring it up to room temp while your smoker is heating up. Otherwise it will struggle to get up to temp and extend your smoking time. The Bradley is hottest on the lowest rack, closest to the heat tube and it is also hotter closer to the back wall than the front. You might consider rotating your racks partway through your cooking time, top to bottom and turn the racks around as well. Let us know how it turns out.
Tom

[Chez Bubba]

DC,

When we do our big cooks, we pack about 40# per smoker. Yes, the cooking time is significantly longer based on the amount of food you pack in. If I smoke a butt (5#) all by itself for personal consumption, it's probably going to take 5-8 hours, depending on the season here in N Indiana. If I smoke 4 butts for a party it's gonna take 12-16.

Meat mass is much denser than air, so the more of the smoker volume you fill with meat, the less air you have available to heat it.

Regarding the layering, I agree with everything Tom said but that's kind of a quandry. I would prefer that the pork & beef fat drip onto the chicken, but the chicken is the most delicate flavor. I certainly wouldn't want pork fat dripping down on my fish.

So I guess my answer to your question is that I don't have a definitive answer, I've always kind of done it seat of the pants.

Just remember, if you want everything to be done at the same time, you're going to have to start it at different times. If you want to start smoking everything at the same time, it's going to be done at different times.

Best of luck on the party, hope your team wins![:)]

Kirk

http://www.chezbubba.com
Ya think next time I check into a hotel & they ask "Smoking or Non?" they would mind?

[JJC]

Welcome to the Forum, DC!  Great advice from Chez and T2 [8D]!  

Where do you hail from?  I'm always on the look out for smokers from the North East!

John
Newton MA

[cleanuphitter]

Thanks for all the great advice.  I'm located in Orange County, CA.  

Things went well yesterday and the meats were a success.  I took the advice of shifting the racks around upon removing the other meats.  The pork was on the bottom with the chicken above it.  Yes, the oregano lemon marinade dripped on the pork, but when I took the pork out to eat, I mearly dabbed (gently) the yellow drips off the top with a paper towel.  No major harm there.

I guess as a newbie, I did learn a valuable lesson.  And that was I didn't compensate for the mass amounts cooking at once.  Hence, the cooking times took much longer than I had mapped out.  But as I've been told, there is no exact science to this and you have to learn from your experiences, right?

I look forward to chatting with ya'll some more!

dc