Increased capacity question


 
J

JLazar

New member
I reviewed the page that showed options for increasing the capacity of a WSM. The two I am interested in are (1) turning an additional top grate upside down on the top grate or (2) adding screws and an additional grate mid way between the top and bottom grates.

My question involves temperature and cooking evenly. I have read where there is a 10-15 degree temperature difference between the top and bottom grates. Unless you rotate the food half way through cooking, the food on the top grate will be done much sooner than the bottom grate. If I place another top grate upside down on the top grate (resting on the handles), will the temperature between the two be close enough that the food finishes at the same time? Is there enough room between the food on the two grates in this case for the food to cook evenly, or do you need a minimum amount of space between grates for food to cook properly? Will the food on the two top stacked grates finish at the same time?

If I go with a middle rack, will I still have to rotate food to finish together? If not, how much longer would the middle rack take for the food to finish (without rotating).

All the above are based on slow cooking at 225 with water in the pan.
 
I added a middle grate to my 18.5 using the shelf bracket method on the modifications section of the main website. The top grate fits in the middle location as well so rotating those two are easy. I see the most temperature difference when cooking chicken high heat with an empty pan so I just put the dark meat on the bottom grate. I haven't used the middle grate with low and slow on something I would temp check so I can't comment on that. I would.think lower temp cooking would have less difference in temps between grates.
 
Thanks. I tried another top grate upside down on the top grate for ribs. There really wasn't enough clearance between the ribs and the other grate, so I just used the bottom grate. I will probably add a middle grate similar to what you did.
 
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