smoking skinny stuff

[whitetailfan]

Had a thought last night, and I'm looking for opinion...

I know that we can get extra racks to double capacity on jerky, and Bassman smokes sausage eight trays deep, but my thought is thus:

If you don't have a full smoker of meat to utilize all the racks, would you space out your racks like normal or do people invert and double-up racks on the top one or two levels when that's all you have.

I have never doubled my racks yet, but if you have thin items like jerky and sausage, I would think that this would be a good idea just because this puts the meat closer together and thus closer to the same temp at all times.  I am guessing the result would be less varience in doneness of the different racks of meat.

If I run three racks, I alternate front to back and up and down at my estimated half way point.  There is usually quite a difference between the top rack and the one in the #3 position by this time.

What do you all think?  Any merit, or waste of time...not a big enough deal to worry about?

<b><font color="green">whitetailfan</font id="green"></b>
"Nice Rack"
Lethbridge, AB

[Thevenin]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by whitetailfan</i>
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If I run three racks, I alternate front to back and up and down at my estimated half way point.  There is usually quite a difference between the top rack and the one in the #3 position by this time.

<b><font color="green">whitetailfan</font id="green"></b>
"Nice Rack"
Lethbridge, AB
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I work on the theory that ignorance is bliss.  As I only have one remote temp probe I've dedided to assume all the meat is the same in the smoker.   But when I made the three racks of ribs.  I did switch them top to bottom just to feel I did something.

Thev.

[Habanero Smoker]

In the past when I did chicken parts, and had less than 4 racks, I would use a single rack per shelf. But what you are saying makes sense, so the next time I will double up the racks.

[Chez Bubba]

Just to play devil's advocate since I don't have a clue to the answer:

Would keeping the meat closer together result in LESS-even heatflow and further the difference in doneness?

Interesting question WTF, I look forward to reading someone's test results.

Kirk

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