mes cold smoker kit.

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i never had trouble with mine not staying loaded (falling down) the hopper until i used it a bunch of times. it got rough inside from creosote so stuff jammed a bit. works great and i am happy with it. i even used it on my big (freezer build) but i did a mail box mod with an AMNPS and i get longer smoke time for overnight. both work well for me !!!
enjoy and good luck

Goliath
 
 
Hey Raf, where all did you seal with the silicone? Just the top lid?

Thanks!
Here I posted some pictures post #29

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/...oker-at-sams-club-mes-cold-smoker-mod-pg-2/20

Also I found I was still getting too much smoke so I bought a dimmer and a 9 foot, 3 prong extension cord. I removed about 4 inches of insulation from the extension cord about a foot from the receptacle end. I cut the black wire and put the dimmer in line of that. I cut the green wire and tied them together with the green on the dimmer. You do not have to cut the white wire. I have a watt meter I plugged the smoker into and turned the dimmer down till I got 75 watts. I also marked the dimmer at 100 watts. I only did one smoke with this but at 75 watts it seems perfect. You get this thin blue smoke that's hard to see but boy does it give a good smoke flavor. I think next time I'm going to start at 150 watts till I just start getting smoke then go down to 100 watts till more smoke rolls out then set it to 75 watts for smoking. It took a long time to get smoke going at 75 watts, but when it did it was good. If your not familiar with electrical wiring you should contact some one who is. You want to make sure your cord and the dimmer can handle the amperage.

One last note if you add chips while your smoking, when you remove the top of the cone it doesn't take long to get flames from the chips if there are some in there so be careful, it happened to me. I put the top of the cone on as soon as I seen flames and it went out and stated smoking again.



 
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Thanks Raf. My cold smoker kit will be delivered tomorrow. I'm excited to give it a try.

I've read others that have tried pellets in the cold smoker. Have you? If so, how did it go?
 
I have not tried pellets, I have several bags of chips. However to the chips I add small chunks of lump charcoal. I read somewhere this is supposed to help get that smoke ring that you don't get in an electric smoker.  However I just tried this a couple times and have not got the ring yet.
 
Just wanted to say THANKS to Smokin Raf! Bought my MES 40 last year and soon found the smoke generation was lacking. Bought an AMZPS, but found lighting and keeping it going was a pain and a crap shoot most of the time. I purchased the MES cold smoker, built an inline dimmer box as Raf suggested. Filled the MES cold smoker about 1/2 way with chips, turned dimmer control on 100% for 10 minutes, and began to smoke well. Turned down to 50 - 60% and it smoked with TBS for over 2 1/2 hours... no fuss, no muss! Smoked a chuckie yesterday with a full load of chips and had good TBS for almost 5 hours! I Love this Thing! The dimmer gives excellent control of the amount and quality of smoke. Looks like after every smoke it's a good idea to clean the creosote from the inside of the chip tower so the chips will drop/feed readily. Highly recommend this accessory with Raf's dimmer mod!
 
I recently received a MES 40" smoker for my birthday and I was very disappointed in the smoke I was able to get out of it at 220 degrees. I did send MES an email and have not received one back. Anyhow, I decided to buy the add on cold smoke kit and I have now used the unit twice and again did not get much smoke flavor or barely an 1/8' smoke ring.The unit smokes like crazy but it appears that most if not all of the smoke is lost out the top of the unit. I have read this post and others and no one has commented on this.Am I doing something wrong? I did not take out the smoke tube from the MES 40 as I was able to use the hook to securely tighten the cold smoker to the unit. Any help/info would be appreciated. In the long run I should have read more and gotten the AMZNPS but it is what it is at this point. But, I am very disappointed with both the cold smoker and the MES 40.
 
in the beginning mine did the same, i used some duct tape to seal it up and it worked great. in time the creosote will build up and things just seemed to seal up better.

Goliath
 
I recently received a MES 40" smoker for my birthday and I was very disappointed in the smoke I was able to get out of it at 220 degrees. I did send MES an email and have not received one back. Anyhow, I decided to buy the add on cold smoke kit and I have now used the unit twice and again did not get much smoke flavor or barely an 1/8' smoke ring.The unit smokes like crazy but it appears that most if not all of the smoke is lost out the top of the unit. I have read this post and others and no one has commented on this.Am I doing something wrong? I did not take out the smoke tube from the MES 40 as I was able to use the hook to securely tighten the cold smoker to the unit. Any help/info would be appreciated. In the long run I should have read more and gotten the AMZNPS but it is what it is at this point. But, I am very disappointed with both the cold smoker and the MES 40.
Whitvt, welcome to the forums.I own the 2nd generation MES and the MES cold smoker kit. I've had good experiences with both. I wanted to be able to load more chips so I bought the cold smoker kit shortly after I got the smoker. I originally bought the AMNPS cold smoker but after months of mods and experimentation I couldn't keep it lit without some crazy mods. But that's another story...anyways, I never had much of a problem with the MES cold smoker leaking much. I'll offer my opinion as to why... In addition to taking out the chip loading tube, I took out the chip tray below the heating element. I also had already done the MES chimney modification when I was messing around with the AMNPS and decided to keep it. Do a quick search and you'll find a bunch of info about it. It only cost a few bucks and makes a big difference in my opinion. By doing these things, the smoker now drafts much better and I don't get much leakage from the top of my cold smoker kit because air is being drawn into the smoker much better than the smoker did straight out of the box.Hope this helps.
 
Tried my MES CSK for some jerky & a little fish.  Way too much smoke,  Tossed the  batch (small one for testing) Tasted like an ash tray,  very heavy acrid, pungent smoke, using the same (cherry) chips I used in the tray inside.  Smoked for @ 2 hrs.  decided that's way too long with this unit.  I'm  going to try Raf's inline power reduction.  

Will give a report after the trial.

Thanks for all the great info here!

Greg
 
How did the trial go? Anyone use pellets yet? I am in the process of using pellets as we speak. Spent the last 5 hours trying to get the AMNPS to stay lit. Even when and bought new pellets as it was the last thing to try. (been trying to get it to work for almost a year now. But that story is for another time. I bought my cold smoker addition shortly after buying the AMNPS last year. Best investment other then new wireless temp probes. Hopefully I haven't ruined the two pork butts. 
 
 
How did the trial go? Anyone use pellets yet? I am in the process of using pellets as we speak. Spent the last 5 hours trying to get the AMNPS to stay lit. Even when and bought new pellets as it was the last thing to try. (been trying to get it to work for almost a year now. But that story is for another time. I bought my cold smoker addition shortly after buying the AMNPS last year. Best investment other then new wireless temp probes. Hopefully I haven't ruined the two pork butts. 
I have used pellets in mine. I have my MES set up in my shop with a vent pipe running up to a exhaust fan. The first smoke I was getting too heavy smoke so I shut the element on the MECS off and cracked the ash drawer open about 3/8 inch. It continued to burn and put out a nice TBS for 2.5 hours until the pellets all burned. You may have to put a exhaust pipe like mine to improve airflow to get this to work.
 
I tried the pellets last night. About a cups worth. Burned extremely fast, and a lot of smoke. Thick enough that it gave off a odd smell. So I ended up just going back to the wood chips. As I know those work.

How long do you leave the cold smoker on before you turn it off? Just long enough for it to start the burning process? Do you fill the whole hopper up? Do you open the whole tray open ot just a corner? Do the pellets properly feed? As the chips have to be knocked down occasionally. I don't think I will need the vent, as I use mine outside. I also use the dryer vent with the vent cap to improve the draft.
 
I tried the pellets last night. About a cups worth. Burned extremely fast, and a lot of smoke. Thick enough that it gave off a odd smell. So I ended up just going back to the wood chips. As I know those work.

How long do you leave the cold smoker on before you turn it off? Just long enough for it to start the burning process? Do you fill the whole hopper up? Do you open the whole tray open ot just a corner? Do the pellets properly feed? As the chips have to be knocked down occasionally. I don't think I will need the vent, as I use mine outside. I also use the dryer vent with the vent cap to improve the draft.
I only had it on for about 10-15 minutes but I don't think you would need that long.I probably used about 2 cups. maybe about 1/3 way full. Pulled the whole drawer out about 3/8 inch. The main reason I wanted to try pellets is because I have a lot of them in different woods. No problem with pellets jamming up.  I have a new bag of hickory chips I intend to try. Might try a mix of chips and pellets. It will be interesting to see if chips will keep burning with the element off.
 
I"ll drink to that Dogging dog!  I have one of the A-Maze-N smoking kits and love it.
 
Good to hear. I have tried everything but the mailbox mod to get my amnps to work while the smoker is on. I will note that it did work when the smoker was off and empty (no grates, pans, trays, with the chip dump try removed) and the amnps sat directly on the burner shield. Go figure. I tried a torch, a heat gun, a combination of both, new pellets... Even let it burn for 20 mins before putting it in. It always burns out halfway through the first row. No matter where I sit it inside. But if I catch it in time, it will start smoking again when I pull it and just sit it outside. So anyways, I have 20lbs of hickory pellets I need to use; somehow. Maybe do the mailbox mod one day. As sleeping through the whole night is very appealing.


What amazes me is that the people who get the amnps to work can't fathom that the pellet tray doesn't work for everyone.


Thanks for all your help.

One last thing, have you seen/tried the dimmer mod for the cold smoker attachment?
 
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