Used my 3 year warranty card at Sams today!

[pignit]

I've been waiting for the new MES to hit our local Sams club. I bought mine almost exactly a year ago and have had problems with it reaching temp the way it should. I could smoke for hours and never get above 238. Although that worked fine for most of the stuff I smoke, it didn't get where I wanted it for poultry and it didn't do what it was advertised to do so I took it back and traded it in for the new 1200 watt model.

Sams was excellent with no haggle about taking it back. They even gave me credit for the last year with another 3 year warranty. Somehow I ended up with a 36 dollar credit and there was such a crowd I didn't bother askin how. She gave it to me on a gift card which I immediately used on 3 corned beef briskets for strami. I'm in the process of breaking it in right now. I'm hopin it smokes as well as it heats up. Nothin in it and no water in the pan it hit 282 in 30 minutes. So far I'm lovin it. I'll post some pics when something I can eat comes out of it.

 

[grampyskids]

Wow, you really scored a grear deal!

 

[kevin13]

Good deal Dave. I'll be buying one within a few weeks as well. Have you figured out how you're going to mount the SD?

 

[pignit]

I'm planning on figuring out a way to mount it through the chip loader tray.

 

[ronp]

Glad it worked out for you Dave. Good luck with it man.

 

[deltadude]

That's one extended warranty investment that paid off!

Enjoy the new MES, it is sure to be a winner with 1200 watts.

It is nice to hear how Sam's is taking care of their customers and you had a great experience.

Congrats...

For MES owners without extended warranties.... and you may be having similar temp issue like Pignit

My Sams MES 40" is older than the one you took back, but I believe both had the 750 watt elements. Mine is from the era with chronic wire and element connection issues (I haven't done a rewire yet). During the summer I can hit 275 in 30 minutes sometimes faster. Depending on ambient other times of the year it varies. Super Bowl smoke I pre-heated for 2 hours, at 1.5 hours I go to throw some chips on and add water pan and was surprised temp was only at 255º, outdoor ambient in upper 40s ( or not really too cold to cause not being at pre-heat set of 270º).
I immediately did a HARD RESET, 5 minutes later the MES was at 275º.
This has happened many times over the last 20 months. Hard Reset ...
So now and I'm not just telling this, I actually do it.

• When I start the smoke after I close the hatch with everything loaded, pans, grills, water, meat, probes, I do a Hard Reset.
• Usually once during a smoke if there appears to be a long period with little or no temp rise either cabinet or meat, I will do a Hard Reset.
• Finally on long smokes like the Super Bowl butt, when I foil and set the MES to finish the cook at around 195-200º then go to bed, I do a Hard Reset.

* You don't need an error message to do a Hard Reset....


I hope this helps those without the warranty who may have trouble achieving temps in the high 200s.

Sorry Pignit, I hope this isn't perceived as thread stealing.

 

[gnubee]

For cold smoking cheese I used an empty canned milk can that fit horizontially exactly into the MES chip tray hole. I went thru all the cans in the pantry trying them one after another untill I found one that fit exactly. I then drilled a hole the same size of the smoke daddy pipe through the can from end to end then pushed the SD pipe on thru to stick into the middle of the MES oven space. It Worked quite well. Any time I want to smoke with hotter temps I just slide out the Can/Smoke daddy rig and replace it with the chip tray.

I did a post on it that got lost in the crash and I don't have the qview of it any more. Sorry.

PS. I have had to do a hard re-set on my MES a few times. The trouble comes if you miss seeing the temp head for the dumper and not do a reset before the meat cools down. A huge bummer when it happens. I have never heard it called a hard re-set before, in the coast guard we used to refer to that as dropping the AC. ( alternating current )

 

[gnubee]

Okay I looked thru my pic and found some old rejected pic of my Original MES Mod Thread that got lost in the great purge of 2009. The really good pictures I had have all been lost in a Photobucket screw up that I had a while back.


This shows the smoke daddy pipe crammed into the soup can when I was first experimenting with the concept. Instead of cutting a proper hole I simply cut an X in the top of the can and shoved the pipe thru the can to see if it would actually work. When it looked like it would work I drilled a snug fitting hole and sealed it with stovepipe cement.

Pipe sticking out of the top of the can.

This shows the can resting in the chip tray to illustrate how good the fit was.

 

[deltadude]

I say Hard vs Soft, I get it from computers..

Hard reset or Hard reboot = is when power to a computer is cycled (turned off and then on) or a special reset button is used to interrupt the cpu and shut down the machine killing power or restarting the power.

Soft reset or warm reboot = is restarting the pc under software control without killing the power.

So with the MES, Hard is first shutting down the controller with on/off then unplug (kill power). Vs Soft reset, to shut down controller with on/off then turn it back on, but not unplug power cord. I guess its more my adaptation of terms.
* If the user just unplugs the power when the controller was on, there could be reset problems. The controller needs to be turn off first. If the user forgets, he can just go through the process again but turn off controller first.

 

[tjohnson]

GREAT Score PignIt!

Ext. Warranties are a HUGE profit center for retailers, but SAMS Ext. Warranties are very reasonably priced and their return/replace policy has been good.


Todd