Hello Everyone,
I was asked to post this as a tip for folks who may want to cook using an aluminum foil baking pan in their smoker.
My smoking project was a meat loaf made from 3 different meats: ground beef, pork sausage, and ground chicken. Knowing that there would be a high fat content of the meat loaf, we did not want to cook the meat loaf in a pool of its own fats. So what I do is take a nail punch out of my tool chest, and I make about 30 holes in the bottom of the pan in which we pack the meat loaf. This allows all of the fats to drip out of the meat loaf below. I place the meat loaf on the upper or second cooking rack inside of the smoker. On the primary shelf of the smoker, I place another aluminum tin foil baking pan, a little larger than the first one underneath the meat loaf plan. Instead of making a really big mess on the drip area or in my case the heat diffuser of the smoker, all of the oils are collected in the lower aluminum foil pan.
So, if you are going to cook something like a meat loaf or a whole chicken for that matter, this is a way of using the foil pan with holes punched in it to allow the fats to drip out of the pan and prevent the chicken from sitting in its own oil.
Have a great day!
Ed