Jonathon, good question. I think the reason I laid out is because 1, I have very little experience with this smoker and was worried about cooking unevenly and 2, I was smoking several different products and was not sure how to get everything to fit in using the included hooks. My goal is to be able to hang products to smoke, I just need to figure out how to best do this.

@ndmike sounds like you’ve got a good plan! Those wings make my mouth water!

@NDMike I was on the fence for a while with getting a horizontal (Green Mountain Grill) with a bull rack system vs the Camp Chef XXL. In the end the capacity and the price of the Camp Chef along with the updated controller ended up making my decision. I haven’t done a lot much smoking on it other than processed products. I do have a couple of pork butts on today and so far it’s working very well. I am curious how well it will work with wings. I’ve done wings on a Trager and Green Mountain and the horizontal format works very well to turn up the heat at the end and crisp them. I do believe Jonathon has done wings on his XXL and said they turned out well so we’ll see. I can always finish them on my Komodo if need be. I tell my wife you really need a couple to do everything properly

Jonathon I’m still learning on my XXL but I really like it so far. It doesn’t cook quite as even as I was hoping it would. Back wall is definitely hotter with the back left corner being the hottest on mine. The nice thing about the XXL is the racks are so easy to pull out and rotate to help even the cooking.
I don’t have very good pics of the finished products but here is what I have

Tex_77 This is very helpful for a newbie like me. Thank-you!

I was feeling pretty discouraged after my first attempt but this thread got me motivated to try again. I did a 5lb test batch last weekend using 4lbs venison, 1lb pork fat. I used the Excalibur hot dog and Bologna seasoning this time along with sure gel and cheddar cheese. My XXL doesn’t go below 150 so I put them on the top shelf above the snack sticks and summer sausage I was doing. I took them to 120-130 and then dropped them into 170 degree water (Electric roaster) It took about 20 minutes to get to 160 then ice bath. I couldn’t believe it but they turned out amazing!
Best of luck to you ToddDSheppard !

Thanks for sharing your experience. I had an almost identical experience a month ago. I also used the Bearded Butcher recipe except I used 10 lbs venison, 2.5 lbs fat. The other ingredients were proportionally identical. I had left a package of pork fat in the fridge for several days since I knew I was going to be using it and it was spoiled when I got it out so i ended up using 1lb pork fat and 1.5lb beef fat. I initially blamed some of it on the beef fat but from what you are describing it sounds about identical to my results. Also done on traeger with similar smoke schedule.
Mine also had an extremely strong (untasteful) smoke flavor. I would have used 2 oz of the Walton’s Hickory smoke powder in my 12.5 lbs of meat per the Bearded Butcher recipe which I later discovered is about 4 times the amount recommended on the package. I’m assuming they must have used something less potent.
This was my first attempt at hot dogs, lots of very useful info in this thread. I’m thinking of trying again, using a binder and trying to Sous Vide them since I’m using a cellulose casing and they are not benefiting from the smoke anyway.