Mailbox mod works too good?

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spag

Newbie
Original poster
Aug 18, 2013
22
64
Portland, Oregon
Hi all. Just finished up my mailbox mod for my MES and AMNPS and man, it is working extremely well.

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I've taken a couple stabs at making sausage and they have came out pretty good, but I had a difficult time producing much smoke. I start around 100 degrees and gradually work my way up to 170, but even at 170, there wasn't much smoke.

My question is that if I fill the AMNPS full and apply smoke for the 10 hours that it has taken me in the past to get the sausage up to 155 degrees, I would think it would come out way over smoked. If I were to only fill the AMNPS maybe a third full to get a few hours of smoke, when would it be best to apply smoke? Maybe right at the beginning? Maybe closer to the end? Would appreciate any thoughts.
 
Spag, you don't say what kind of pellets you're using.  You can get a lighter smoke flavor if you used apple or cherry, for instance, rather than hickory or oak.
 
Thanks guys. I think I understated what kind of smoke I was getting. I hear all of you more experienced folks looking for the thin blue smoke. This was cut it with a knife thick (it was a little too dark to see the color). I got to thinking about it and had this thought. Since I only was firing up my smoker to test out the mailbox and the amnps, I didn't have the smoker plugged in. I also wanted to see how much heat the mailbox would add (ended up only being a degree or two compared to outside as it was very mild in oregon last night). If the smoker were to be plugged in though and hotter on the inside the it was outside, would that help the heat on the inside (and hence the thick smoke) want to escape out the vent more and thin the smoke out? To answer your question Neely, I was using mesquite pellets that I nuked for one minute. Thanks.
 
Yeah, mesquite is a very strong flavor. I wouldn't want to do 3 rows of that for anything, let alone sausage.

And I think you're right about firing up the MES. The heat should help the draw, and lessen the amount of smoke inside at any given time.
 
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