MES 30 - How much meat is too much?

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gersus

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
May 8, 2011
497
12
Mid-Missouri
Since my successful round of BBB, I'm wanting to smoke up a bunch of it to put in the freezer.

Last time, I ended up cutting the 5 lb butterflied butt into two pieces which was fine with me.  It took up about 2/3 of the rack if I remember right.  

Can I smoke 4 of these at one time, one butt on each rack? Or is that too much at one time to allow heat/smoke circulation? I suppose it would be a good idea to rotate them half way thru? 

Thanks, ya'll!
 
Since my successful round of BBB, I'm wanting to smoke up a bunch of it to put in the freezer.

Last time, I ended up cutting the 5 lb butterflied butt into two pieces which was fine with me.  It took up about 2/3 of the rack if I remember right.  

Can I smoke 4 of these at one time, one butt on each rack? Or is that too much at one time to allow heat/smoke circulation? I suppose it would be a good idea to rotate them half way thru? 

Thanks, ya'll!
An MES 30 would be pushing it with over 12 pounds of cold meat at once?

The MES 40, with the 1200 watt element has plenty of juice.

I prefer only using the top two racks, but I don't have a problem using the top 3 of my MES 40.

I never put any meat on the bottom rack. Too close to the heat for me.

As long as you have an inch or two of space in the middle & the ends, you should be alright.

And yes, I would rotate them half way through, and switch left to right too.

Bear
 
Last edited:
I load it up. I just did 8 butts.  I put the 4 larger ones on the right side and the smaller ones on the left.  I preheat it to 275 to help with the initial heat recovery.  I do not put the probes in until a couple hours into the smoke so I have solid muscle.  Idon't try this when its fairly cold out because it just can't get the heat recovery.  I do put a probe in the bottom left and then in one of the middle ones on the right. I use the one on the right to make sure I am not moving along to fast.  This has all been done with trial and error and seems to work good.  the bottom left in mine tends to always be the cold spot and the last one to get to temp.  It is hard to get them in my top rack sometimes as it seems a little shorter on heigth than the rest.

Of course as I say this I think I ran into the dreaded fried wiring that is posted about this past weekend.  luckily they were all at 140 internal temp, foiled and moved to stove.  not quite as smokey as I would have liked, but oh well thats what I get for procrastinating and not getting that repair done ahead of time.  good luck.
 
Last edited:
I load it up. I just did 8 butts.  I put the 4 larger ones on the right side and the smaller ones on the left.  I preheat it to 275 to help with the initial heat recovery.  I do not put the probes in until a couple hours into the smoke so I have solid muscle.  Idon't try this when its fairly cold out because it just can't get the heat recovery.  I do put a probe in the bottom left and then in one of the middle ones on the right. I use the one on the right to make sure I am not moving along to fast.  This has all been done with trial and error and seems to work good.  the bottom left in mine tends to always be the cold spot and the last one to get to temp.  It is hard to get them in my top rack sometimes as it seems a little shorter on heigth than the rest.

Of course as I say this I think I ran into the dreaded fried wiring that is posted about this past weekend.  luckily they were all at 140 internal temp, foiled and moved to stove.  not quite as smokey as I would have liked, but oh well thats what I get for procrastinating and not getting that repair done ahead of time.  good luck.
There you go gersus!

Werdwolf proves it can be done, and I think he's even talking about the MES 30.

I would think it would be more difficult, but he did it---I didn't---He knows!

Bear
 
Awesome. I think I'll try 3 butts and leave the bottom rack empty. Or maybe I'll do two rounds of two butts each.... would depend on if I can find that much meat.  

Thanks for the help! :)
 
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