Optimal meat loading qestion

Weight capacity? I guess someone forgot to tell me about this problem. Just so I know, how much is too much? Oh well, my wife says I don't/wouldn't listen anyway.

There is two kinds of heat.Direct and indirect, so a person will want to keep this in mind when cooking long cooks. Just because the bottom shelf is closer to the element, a person has to remember that heat RISES. That doesn't mean you don't have to watch out for direct heat though.When loading up on PBs make sure the largest is on the top shelf.

Some products have more fat on them that can be used to help with the direct heat. Just use the fat as an insulation from the direct heat.

One MUST remember to load where you can allow smoke to freely flow around the meat,you know, we are smoking the product.

I'm sure others have some ideas that will help ya?

AND.....never place chicken above other meats. The dripping juioes will cross contaminate.

Any way you look at it if you have two or more different meats in your smoker one is going to get drippings from the other, no way around it. If that doesn't bother you then it is basically no big deal. Load it up, when the shelves fall off the hangers you have found your max capacity. Just kidding, but if you can fit it in it will cook and smoke. I personally think that the smoker works better at capacity than with a light load but in the end it probably does not make a big difference. You would really need to pack a shelve big time to not allow smoke to get around everything, just my .02.

Thanks for the great responses...so I actually could put packer cut brisket on each of the 2 shelves then and not worry about it as long as the smoke can get around them? That would be awesome!

Yep,

Thing to remember about those packers is that it is okay for them to touch the walls of the smoker, because they shrink up real fast. It won't take any longer to cook two as opposed to cooking one.You might want to put the fat side up on the top one.

I did two brisket flats on my bottom shelf on my cs020 and put two PBs on the top shelf. I had to use a little bigger drip pan though.

As MaxQue pointed out be careful with chickens when cooking them with anything else. I just don't do it period, just me though!

Just make sure you have a thermometer in each piece of meat, one no doubt get done before the other.

Pork dripping on beef or vice versa isn't a problem, it's actually pretty tasty.

NEVER let chicken drip on anything, it's leaves nasty grey streaks.

Think about rotating. When you have to use all the shelves, but the biggest pieces on the top/bottom.

And practice. If you never use the bottom shelf, don't expect it perfect the next time you put something on there for the first time.

When you mix meats, you also have to consider timing. Butts/Brisket tend to cook about the same time for the same weight, but ribs won't take nearly as long.

On the bottom shelf put fat side down as a heat baffle.