250gallon smoker bottom rack slideable or fix?

[donkingngian]

Hi, My name is Jug and now I am building a 250 gallon reverseflow smoker. I cant decide that my bottom rack should be fix or slideable. I see one advantage of fix bottom rack is that I can maximize the cooking space.But I worry that it is hard to check that the brisket is done or not and I am not sure that I can reach to the deep part of bottom rack when top racks are still attached or not. The advantage of slideable bottom rack is that is it easy to spritz and check for tenderness of brisket something like that. I see many builder make bottom rack fix and now I still can not decide. Please give me some more ideas of pros and cons of each model. Thank you

 

[daveomak]

Put a door on each side of the Cooking Chamber... Problem solved...

 

[donkingngian]

Put a door on each side of the Cooking Chamber... Problem solved...

Is it possible to do that?

 

[daveomak]

Folks do it on 500 gal smokers... Make certain you cut the door opening down about 3-4 inches from the top of the CC, on BOTH sides... That should leave you enough steel to hang the doors from and leave room to get meat in and out of the smoker..
You WANT the gap, above the meat for heat and smoke flow... so 3-4" will do that just fine, + the inch or so when putting the meat on the top rack.. And, it makes the doors easier to lift...