New owner with uneven temperatures

[XXL]

Hi everyone, I'm a proud new owner of a OBS.  I already have a Auber PID and I have a queston regarding temperature within the unit.  I cooked a brisket yesterday and It was a little drier than I would have liked but was OK for my first one.    I have some ideas on what to improve but I am concerned about the temperature stratification especially during the first six hours of cooking. I had very big temperature difference below the meat vs. above the meat.  I had a 8lb flat in there and I had the thermocouple above the meat.  The PID controller held a perfect 220, but below the meat, where I had my remote temperature sensor I was reading 260.  Does a fan help in circulate air when cooking a price of meat that big as it almost takes up an entire tray?  It seems as the meat reduces in size somewhat the temperatures even out a little better because there is some more space for the air to go above the meat.  I thank you all in advance for your advice.

[Mr Walleye]

Hi XXL and welcome to the forum.

When your smoking 1 item such as your brisket that you did, you want to control the temp the meat is exposed to. In other words, you want to control the temp below the meat. The meat will influence the temps above it. As the meat starts to gain heat the stratification will be reduced. If you are doing multiple items you will want to do rack rotations because the lower racks will finish earlier. You can install a circulation fan which certainly helps. I've had a circulation fan installed for a couple years and although it doesn't totally eliminate rack rotations it certainly limits the times it's required. As an example, when I do 6 full racks of ribs (thats 4 full Bradley racks) I usually do 1 rack rotation.

You might want to have a look at WesTexaSmoker's various posts on doing Brisket. He's the king of Brisket around here and has many posts on it.

Mike