I have 5 beef shanks about 1 inch thick. My cooker won’t fit them flat. Will it change the slow cooking process if I stack them 2 high?
My guess is you'll at least need to rotate them every hour or so for the first couple of hours, by turning each one over in the stack.
The problem here is that whenever you just lift the lid you lose about 15F, and it's going to take time to get back up to temp. Now when you lift the lid, and start fucking inside the pot, you're going to lose a lot more temp.
If it fits other goodies in there and you stack them veggies meat veggies meat veggies, cooking on the lowest setting you will be fine. I’ve done this with a few cuts, and the trick is getting heat evenly distributed. You do not want the meat touching. It does not become like one big roast. Be sure to use veggies that stand well up to long cooking times. The air flow the heating creates is important.