How much air space is needed around meat to get good smoke?

[tomzo]

Greetings,

I am preparing to smoke a large (14lb) pork shoulder that I cut in half to reduce the cooking time.   I have a lot of people showing up tomorrow and the food is supposed to be on the table by 2PM so I don't want a 28 hour smoke.

My question is how much air space should be around each piece of meat.   I would like to place both pieces on the same rack in my MES 30 (W/AMNPS) and it looks like I will have a soliud inch to inch and a half around both pieces all the way around.   Is that enough?

Alternatively I could stack them but one would then drip on the other the whole time.   Not sure if that is the worst thing ever, but I was wondering what the prevailing wisdom is regarding this issue.

Thanks in advance!

Tom

 

[rmenasco]

I think as long as you have an inch it should be fine, you could also stack them and put a drip pan under the top one with a rack to keep it out of the drippings. 

 

[tomzo]

Thanks - my challenge is that my cuts of shoulder are too fat to fit between the space on the MES 30.   I also want to keep them on the same rack so I can place my Maverick probe on that rack.