All good quality offset smokers will come with baffle plates in the main cooking chamber to help set temperature zones. If you’re wanting the cooking chamber to be a consistent temperature throughout the meat smoker, you can position your baffle plates in a way that dampens down the heat closest to the firebox. Sometimes, however, you might intentionally want hot spots in your BBQ smoker if you’re wanting something to cook quicker than other bits of meat, or you know that one cut of meat is thicker than the others so you want to give it more heat. If this is the case, a position that meat closest to the firebox leaves larger gaps in between your baffle plates to allow the heat to penetrate through. The positioning of the meat in your smoker tends to be more based on the temperature you would like to cook at. Generaly a smoker will always be hotter on the firebox side so that is a good side to place your chicken or bork butt, while the fussier brisket and beef ribs can be on the far side opposite the smoker box.