First Smoke in MES 40 - Ribs - Beef Butt - Turky Drums - Gizzards & Hearts! *Pics*

  • Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
SMF is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

thoseguys26

Master of the Pit
Original poster
Jan 4, 2012
1,341
60
Aspen Valley
Round one with the MES 40 that I just got two days ago and I'm pretty darn excited with it's performance. I thought it was about the coolest thing in the world to clean the garage , watch football & drink some brew while checking the internal temp of my beef butt with the press of a button on the handy wireless MES controller! It was very addicting and I annoyed my girlfriend by asking her to guess the temp of my beef butt every five minutes.. hehee.

I was just going to do ribs but then I got a thinking, that MES 40 is pretty roomy...I better not waste all of that beautiful smoke with 3 of 4 racks being empty! When I went to the store, I literally just walked around looking for anything to smoke. I'm sure YOU ALL have done it before! I found turkey legs, a beef butt and some hearts & Gizzards. Great Idea!

I seasoned the MES 40 Friday evening and rubbed my ribs and soaked my turkey legs in a brine overnight for Saturday.

RIBS

RUB:

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup Paprika

1/4 cup salt

1/4 cup garlic powder

2 Tb Ground black pepper

2 Tb Onion Powder

1 tsp Rosemary Powder

2 tsp Thyme

1 Tb Red Pepper Flakes

1 tsp Cayenne Pepper Powder

1 Tb Cumin

1 Tb Chili Powder

I did a quick oil rub on each side and used 1-2 Tb of the rub on each side. Wrapped ribs in plastic wrap and let sit over night.

Smoked them at 200° - 220° for 4.5 - 5 hrs with 4 pans of wood chips (my amns hasn't arrived yet). I put baby rays spicy & sweet sauce on one rib and famous dave's Devil's Spit on the other (one my favorite bbq sauces ever!) - smoked those for another 20 minutes to crust up the sauce a bit.

Fantastic Ribs!! Don't get me wrong, I've smoked a bunch on my other smoker but I didn't expect everything to come out SO good as it did the first time using the MES 40.

Turkey Drum / Legs

I let the turkey drums / legs sit in a gallon zip lock of water with three TB of sugar cure and 1 TB of McCormick's rotisserie chicken seasoning overnight. Patted them dry and put them on the smoker.

I'm pretty new at the smoked turkey legs (well not eating them, just smoking them) so this was an experiment. These came out great! The skin was tougher than the store bought but I just removed it with one quick tug with my teeth. Meat came out moist and smokey. Very happy.

Beef Butt

I didn't write down my rub for this but it was pretty common for red meat and consisted of Salt, Thyme, Sage, Oregano, Rosemary, Pepper, Garlic & Onion powder & some Cayenne powder.

I just rubbed this about an hour before smoking. Smoked until 140° internal. Turned out great. Medium done and super tender. I was surprised at how tender it turned out. If I had a slicer I'd make some nice thin slices for sandwich meat. I sliced it about 1/4'' by hand and can't wait to have a cold mayo, wheat bread sandwich after I write this post.

Chicken Hearts & Gizzards

This might not be normal, but every single time we cooked a duck, goose, turkey for any occasion my two brothers and I would always fight over who got to eat the heart and gizzard. The neck was a very distant third.

Salt N Pepper and into the smoker. They came out great except they took a little too much smoke flavor. Next time I will put them in when there is not much smoke because they really seem to have some super smoke absorbing skills. My dog also loved them.

Jalapeno Powder

I just dehydrated some Jalapeno peppers and ground them to powder. Very tasty heat on everything, including rubs and in sausages.

*** I think the back right corner is a little hotter than the rest, especially on the bottom rack closest to the heat source / smoke pan. I also think the back right get's more smoke when the vent is wide open being it's the quickest point from A to B for the smoke to escape. I'm guessing the amns will fix both problems.

* post got kind of long so here are some pictures!

5fb3e693_IMGP0002.jpg


44f8a10e_IMGP0004.jpg


0079000c_IMGP0007.jpg


6672fac4_IMGP0009.jpg


df50d708_IMGP0013.jpg


7beb47db_IMGP0016.jpg


a3b6d683_IMGP0021.jpg


9d1bd291_IMGP0026.jpg


37739e82_IMGP0028.jpg


c6935e01_IMGP0084.jpg


768829ec_IMGP0033.jpg


476058fa_IMGP0034.jpg


fea91e43_IMGP0038.jpg


7a0d865f_IMGP0044.jpg


3557bf82_IMGP0049.jpg


2c2fdf73_IMGP0051.jpg


738c95fd_IMGP0054.jpg


d0e4d711_IMGP0058.jpg


41debb50_IMGP0069.jpg


99411d35_IMGP0075.jpg


f7764ffd_IMGP0082.jpg
 
Everything looks delicious! Great job!

The only suggestion I would make is to always put poultry below everything else. 

Due to the amount of bacteria on poultry you don't want the juices dripping on other meat.
 
Everything looks delicious! Great job!

The only suggestion I would make is to always put poultry below everything else. 

Due to the amount of bacteria on poultry you don't want the juices dripping on other meat.


SMokinAl - thanks for the tip, that is very good advice and it's much appreciated. I really didn't know what to expect with 4 levels of smoking racks to utilize. I wasn't sure how much each meat would drip or not.  I also didn't know how much each meat might take on the others flavor being they are all so close together in the same smoker.

Did you ever post your chicken cordon bleu recipe? Looks mighty Tasty!!
 
Last edited:
Everything looks delicious! Great job!

The only suggestion I would make is to always put poultry below everything else. 

Due to the amount of bacteria on poultry you don't want the juices dripping on other meat.
X2 and it looks like you really knocked it out of the park 
 
Thanks guys! I'm pretty excited with the MES 40 so far. Once the amns finally shows up I will be back to smoking something. 

Thanks to Bearcarver's post, cleaning the window was a breeze with a little ash and water. I was pretty surprised how well it worked.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/113467/cleaning-mes-window-without-any-chemicals-at-all

A buddy came over to watch some football and I had to show him my new smoker. He didn't expect it to be full of meat! You could say he was slightly excited.
 
You really broke yours in good and proper! Everything looks so yummy. I have an MES 30 with remote and love, love, love it. Now about those gizzards and hearts-at what temp and how long did you smoke them? In laws are coming to visit and I would love to try them. Congrats on a successful smoke and thanks in advance.
 
Looks great...JJ
 
Looks great I am going to do my first racks this weekend with your rub!  Thanks for sharing the recipe!
drool.gif
COOL! You'll like it. If you like more spicy ribs than you may want to double the cayenne or get more heat from a sauce, like the Devils Spit sauce.

The poultry tip is a good one. Never again will my poultry have anything below it. Thanks guys!
 
You really broke yours in good and proper! Everything looks so yummy. I have an MES 30 with remote and love, love, love it. Now about those gizzards and hearts-at what temp and how long did you smoke them? In laws are coming to visit and I would love to try them. Congrats on a successful smoke and thanks in advance.


Being this was experiment one, I had the smoker at 225° and just watched the gizzards until they got a little color/bark to them. They took around 40 minutes. In my experience with hearts and gizzards, they are more forgiving when it comes to overcooking and drying out. Unlike a good roast or steak, the G & H stay pretty moist.

*Watch the smoke - G's & H's absorb the smoke flavor quite well. Next time I'd probably only hit them with smoke for 10-15 minutes.

If you want a real treat, deep fry them in a flour , egg dip and flour again seasoned with salt & pepper.  I've done that a couple times and it's super tasty.

This just came! WOOHOoo

9bd187a5_amns.jpg
 
Thanks for the info on smoking the hearts and gizzards. Normally I do fry them just as you mentioned and they are oh so good! We use ranch and blue cheese as dippers for them. I'm gonna do a test run with some before the in laws visit. Wonder how brining them for a bit would turn out? Great looking food though
 
Thanks for the info on smoking the hearts and gizzards. Normally I do fry them just as you mentioned and they are oh so good! We use ranch and blue cheese as dippers for them. I'm gonna do a test run with some before the in laws visit. Wonder how brining them for a bit would turn out? Great looking food though


Thanks. Did you ever give the hearts & gizzards a shot? did you brine them?

I wish they just sold hearts (I love my gizzards but) because deep fried hearts are Delish!
 
Hey SmokinHusker - Just found this looking through some old pics, thought you'd enjoy. Deep fried hearts and gizzards!!

bc29f510_Picture21.png
 
SmokingMeatForums.com is reader supported and as an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Latest posts

Hot Threads

Clicky