First cook on gravity feed question.

[thigpen1]

I just received my Assassin 17 gravity feed smoker and cooked 3 butts on it. I might have overthought this. I put 2 10lb butts on one shelf and 1 10lb butt on the shelf above it. In an attempt to control the fat drippings I put 2 half pans and on a lower shelf, I still had plenty of room for air to flow around the pans to get to the upper shelves. My butts all cooked at different times coming off about 3 hours apart. I cooked at 230 till first butt came off and raised temp to 250 after first butt came off and 275 after 2nd butt came off. At the end of the day this was all good since I had planned to foil and hold in a cooler till time to eat. Do you think my half pans had any impact on the difference in cook times.

Observations on my half pan set up, I'm not sure a half pan in the traditional fat drain location would have held all the fat drippings and I would probably have made a mess changing it out. When I pulled the first butt off I pullled the rack out and had drippings and small pieces of meat all over my BBQ mat (thank goodness for the mat on my wife's patio). For the next butts I pulled the rack with the half pans out so any drippings coming off would fall into the pan which helped save my mat and patio.

 

[pjtexas1]

do you know the temps of each rack? usually the bottom rack on a gf is way hotter than the others. if the 2 racks you used were off too much that might explain the different cook times. but sometimes they just take more or less time. i cook mostly brisket and can cook 6 of roughly the same size and they never finish together.