Hanging Sausage or laying sausage on racks - Temp differance between racks

[cstallings]

I'm new to smoking and have only smoked one small batch of sausage and two chickens.  Sausage was actually the first thing I smoked...not the best idea for your first smoke.  I'm using a MES 30 and we are still getting to know each other.  I had strange heat fluctuations during my first smoke and rendered some fat, so I decided to play with my heat settings with an empty grill and my Mav probes. 

I placed both Mav probes in small potato pieces and placed them in the second and third racks from the bottom.  Both probes were placed near the left wall and were in-line vertically.  I found that the second rack from the bottom was fairly close to my MES temp, but the probe on the third rack at times was 20 degrees higher than the lower rack.  The temps were the farthest apart at the top of the upward swing, but the gap would close as the temps dropped back down to what I had the MES set on.  I only tested this around sausage temperatures...up to 180 on the top rack (Yes I know 180 is too hot for sausage).

My question:

Will hanging sausage in this environment be bad?  Seems like some areas will get much hotter than other and I would be more prone to render fat.  It seems like it would cook better if I laid the sausage flat and put the probe on the same rack.

I need to test the other racks and see what the temperature variance is among those.   

Thanks for you help

 

[diyelker]

I'll be watching the responses to this. I feel the same way about my mes. It's real difficult to control heat. First time I was too hot, then the next time I was too cool for awhile. I want to set a temp and see it hold.