WSM Questions - Maximizing Pork Butts and proper technique

I'm proud to say that I'm a graduate of the Wiviott Course(thanks again Gary!). However, although I did complete Step 5, pulled pork via pork butts, I did have some problems with heat flow which are discussed here.

This time, I'm doing 4-6 pork butts, and as the last thread instructed, I will be using both racks, and smaller butts (8-9lbs) which are more comparable in size to each other. I'm assuming that I'm going to put them as close to the middle of the grates as possible in order to avoid air flow problems. I'm also assuming that I still flip and rotate the butts the way I would normally if only using one grate and only 2-3 butts. However, what about rotating the butts from the middle to top racks and visa versa? Do I do that, and if so, when? Finally, should I expect this to affect overall cooking time?

Any advice from those of you who have cooked multiple butts on a WSM would be greatly appreciated [**COUGH, Gary Wiviott, COUGH**].

I generally always cook 4 butts, and it doesn't seem to really affect the finish time too much, or at least not in such a drastic manner as to say it was due to the extra meat and not 1 of 10000 other possible reasons (wind, temps, etc).

I have also pretty much stopped rotating, flipping and basting my butts during the cook. I have noticed no loss of quality from doing this at all.

As long as you make sure there is room around the outside of each rack for airflow you should be okay. You can probably move them slightly once they start shrinking up to get some air between them in the center of the rack.

Six butts would be a TON of pork. Not sure how big a party you are throwing but I find 4 butts leaves plenty of room for sausage in the last hours of the cook

Jamie

EDIT:
I noticed in your post about your last cook it seems ya did the entire cook in the same day? If so you may find it easier to fire the WSM up at 10PM the night before ya want it done. Use the Minion Method, get things settled in around 11pm and go to bed. When done, double HD foil each butt and stash in a small cooler. You should be able to kep the "burn your hands hot" for at least 6-8+ hours that way.