Questions on my new MES 30"

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thelorax31

Newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2010
18
11
Last night I came home from work to find my new MES 30" sitting by the front door. Today, I seasoned it and got to try it out.

The skinless boneless chicken breasts cooked in 1 hour and 4 minutes at 265F and I thought that was pretty good. The level of smoke flavor was good but not as intense as my old propane smoker. I will see what I can do about improving that later.

I used two charges of wood chips and checked it a half hour in to the smoke and more was needed. It seems like adding the second charge of chips didnt really do a whole lot. Not sure if they burnt up quickly or not much at all. I pulled the wood chute and they were burning, but just not much smoke coming out of the stack.

So, how long does a cup of chips smoke for?

How effective is adding more chips during the smoke?

I know that with the burned chips will add insulation to the chip pan. Is there still enough heat from the element to properly burn additional cups of chips? How many additional cups can be added before you open the door and empty the chip pan?

Many thanks,

Brian
 
Hey Brian

Congrats on your new smoker!

A handful of chips will smoke for about 30 minutes

Were the chips burned to ash or still black

Todd
 
After about 30 minutes the first cup was reduce to pretty much ash. Upon peering through the side where the wood goes, the chips were mostly black with ash forming. I took a sniff above the stack and I could smell only a slight hint of wood smoke. It's 28F out this morning and all I could see is water vapor rising off the stack. My nose knows. I do not know how much time went by when I did a visual of the chip pan and with my nose. I can say it was less than a half hour. My guess would be 10-15 minutes. I noticed with the first addition of wood, the stack was smokin in 4 minutes. I did not take a nose test, so it could  have been water vapor. I did not see the need for a third addition of chips. By the time I did my nose test, I had ten more degrees left before the chicken was at temperature.

Brian
 
OK Todd since your too much of a gentleman to tell him That the solution to his problem is an AMNPS, I guess I'll have to do it for you. Todd owns A-MAZE-N smokers. His little device will produce smoke for hours without reloading it. He's a stand up guy & as you can see, he's not trying to push his product on you. I think he has a special going on now. Come'on Todd I made the intro, you can follow up.
 
I agree with SmokinAl. Just get an A-Maze-N Smoker from Todd. I use the A-Maze-N smoker only now and do not use the chip drawer in my MES 30. You can get as much and as long a smoke you want using the A-Maze-N smoker and it is very easy to use.

David
 
+3 for the A Maze N smoker...I use it in my MES all the time, and it works beautifully. Forget using that stinkin' built in chip tray.
 
you talk about the a maze n smoker but you dont say what it is or where to get it
 
Try searching here on the forum, and it should pop up.  One of the members (TJohnson) Todd already responded, and is on here all the time and he is the patent holder.  Try sending him a PM (private message).  Good guy, super helpful.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the Info and link. I saved the link to the page and will look at this at some point. It looks like another fun little toy which will solve a draw back to the short burn on the wood supply.
 
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