mes 30 cold smoking

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big nut brewer

Newbie
Original poster
Nov 17, 2014
24
25
Wausau, WI
Hello folks:

I have a 1st gen MES 30 digital smoker and a masterbuilt "cold smoking" attachment.

I smoked my first batch of cheese Sunday evening.  The temp outside was  around 10.  I loaded the smoker with cheese, loaded the cold smoker attachment with maple chips, truned on the cold smoker attachment and let it do it's thing.

About an hour later I went back to check how things were going, made sure the chips were falling down onto the element in the cold smoker box, and checked the temp inside the smoker.  I truned on the main smoker unit to see what the built in thermometer said, and it was 33 inside according to that.  Reading on the forums here, it seems to be a consensus that you will get more some penetration if the temp is above 40.  So I turned on the main element for a few mins.  Now the inside them was reading 70.  So I shut the main smoker down at that point.  Over the next three hours the temp slowly dropped to the smoker to 53.  I extracted the cheese, vaccum sealed, and put in the fridge for a couple week nap.

I cut off a corner of one of the blocks durring packaging, and I did pick up some smoke.  Horray!

Here's my question(s) for anyone still following:  Have any of you rigged up a temperature controller on an MES so you could create a setpoint under 100?  I do this in my homebrewing fermentation chamber (chest freezer) with an STC1000 homade controller.  I could try to rig up this same controller on my smoker, but it is only rated to service 10 amps.  Maybe someone knows how many amps the coils in the MES 30 pulls?

Thanks for your help! - Ben
 
It has been done. You will need a 1500 watt dimmer switch. I am not sure that it is needed. I sometimes have to warm my MES to cold smoke it is no big deal. You can put a remote thermometer in their if you are wanting to keep an exact temperature if you want. 70 is not to hot for cold smoking.

Happy smoken.

David
 
What I'm considering is replacing me Masterbuilt cold smoking kit for an ama-z-en smoker tray, for overnight smoking.  If I could override the MES 30 controller and dial in a set temp of around 50, it would truely be a set it and forget it situation in the cold winter months (7 months out of the year here in good ole WI it seems.)

I was hoping someone out there had actually done it and posted it for reference, and my feeble searching skills had failed me.  Oh well...
 
OP, I use something similar in my fermenting chamber for beer and sausages. It's a DIY paint can heater. In a large wine fridge, I can control the temps pretty much up to 90 degrees or so. Given that the MES is a pretty well insulated box, I'd imagine it'd have no problem at all maintaining 50 degrees. I use it in conjunction with the STC1000 also. Here's a shot of it inside of the wine fridge so you can get an idea of the area it's heating. Also, here's the DIY I used. It's very easy and very cheap to set this up....especially since you've got the STC already.

http://www.brewstands.com/fermentation-heater.html


Edit: If you do this please let us know how it goes in regards to smoking some cheese 
drool.gif
 
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Yup!  I've seen the paint can heater... and i'm sure that would work!  In my fementation chamber, I use a very small space heater in lieu of that.

After some discussion here I just went back to the Masterbuilt website, and the MES30 is only a 800 watt element... so that translates to 6.67 amps.  THe STC1000 is rated for 10 amps.

I think I'm going to consider buying a new STC1000 and a project box, and replacing the controller completely.

The advantage to this is I wouldn't be eating up valuable realestate  for an additional heater inside the box.

If I end up doing this I will lay it all out for everyone to see here.
 
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Just looked up a STC1000 on Amazon to order... forgot the fact that the top end of this controller is 210 degrees.  I'll have to find a different controller if I want toto be a full time device.
 
 
Just looked up a STC1000 on Amazon to order... forgot the fact that the top end of this controller is 210 degrees.  I'll have to find a different controller if I want toto be a full time device.
That's right. If you're looking for more precise control over temps in the MES, I'd go with a PID setup. It can be had for around $50 if using a MYPIN. Otherwise, I would have been weary of putting the rubber sensor into the hot MES box anyways. For your cheese purposes though and most all smoking of cured sausages, it would serve just fine.
 
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