QUESTIONS for you MES30/40 users

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jbfromtennessee

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Aug 14, 2014
138
21
smokin boston butts

do you use the water pan?

if so, what do you use and how much??

do you do anything to the meat during the smoke??

i am using a amaze-n smoker for 100% of the smoke. should i remove the chip tray??

any other suggestions for a successful smoke would be appreciated.  
 
Evening jb. I have a MES 30 Gen 1--been using it for several years.

1. I have NEVER used the water pan as its intended. I have it filled with sand as a heat sink and foiled over to keep the sand clean. Your MES is a pretty well sealed oven and as such retains moisture very well. Adding water or any other liquid will do nothing but cause condensation on the inside of the smoker. This can lead to liquid dripping on your meat.

2. I too use an AMNPS for smoke. Mine is in a mailbox mod as i had trouble keeping it lit inside the MES. If you're using the mailbox mod, pull the chip pan out a couple of inches to help get the smoke into the cook chamber.

3. Keep the top vent WIDE OPEN to allow smoke to exhaust freely. You want a continuous supply of FRESH smoke moving past your meat.

4. Try to keep the door closed as much as possible. A MES will lose heat very fast if the door is open. Rember: If you're looking, you ain't cooking.

5. DO NOT trust the stock temp guage or the meat probe. Bith are usually way off. Get yourself a duel probe digital thermometer as soon as its in the budget. Also an inexpensive Instant Read Therm is a great buy.

Hope this helps.

Gary
 
gary, thanks so much for your reply.  after reading more posts on this subject i am not going to use the water pan at all.  i am one of  the lucky ones i guess, i got a amaze-n smoker and it works perfect inside my mes30. i just finished my third test drive with it using two of the rows and they burnt down to the last pellet in about 9-10 hours. now for the real deal. gonna put a boston butt on that bad boy at about one or two one morning, shut the door and not take a peep until i put a IT probe in it at about the 4 1/2 hour mark. .
 
I have an MES40, and also use an AMNPS. I drilled out the vent holes in the original chip tray, and haven't had a problem with the AMNPS going out. I do keep the top vent pretty well wide open as well.

One other thing you might want to look into is an independent PID controller to replace the stock board. As Gary said, they are less than accurate when it comes to giving the correct temperature (I myself have had three different board from masterbuilt). I built one using a temp controller that controls a SSR, which in turn controls the coil.

I'll be watching for updates for sure on his one...don't forget pictures.
 
I have a MES 40 and use the AMNS. I remove the chip tray and pull out the chip loader various lengths from an inch to almost all the way out. I adjust as I feel the need to control the smoke. The top vent is wide open. No water tray. I have had no problems keeping the AMNS lit.
 
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