Sams MES40 issue

[mikeh]

Just got off the phone with a  buddy from work who had bought a Sams MES40 for Christmas.  He said that he was going to smoke a chicken tonite and he had put his a-maze-n tube smoker inside and some chips in the chip tray.  He said he was walking in his house when he heard a noise outside.  He went to his smoker and it had some sort of small explosion inside it.  It blew his door open and the chip tray loader completely out of his smoker.  He said the chip loader was 5 ft away from the smoker.  Now, I have never heard of this happeening, but wanted to post this here to see if anyone has experienced something like this or have heard of it happening.   He is going to take it back to Sams for a new one and he did send Masterbuilt an email on all this.  I feel bad that he has not had the best of luck with his new smoker. 

Mike

 

[daveomak]

Mike, that happens on occasion.... It is called a "backdraft" or "flashover"....  chips get to smoldering and the right mix of oxygen gets in the smoker and "wham"..  Leaving the chip drawer pulled out a bit should help.... constant oxygen supply should help....  

About the amount of smoke....  Too much smoke...  the tube smoker was plenty... the chips were not needed...  A really good tasting smoke on meat is thin, wispy with a bluish tinge.... white billowing smoke can taste very bad....     Dave

 

[chef jimmyj]

There is nothing wrong with the smoker...The same thing happened to me on my first run last Jan. I preheated the MES for 30 minutes, dumped in a Full load of Chips, Put the meat in and sat back and cracked a Beer. About 3 minutes later...BOOM! The Chip loader flew 3ft into the yard and I had a Fire in the Chip Drawer. I dumped the burning chips, loaded it up again and in a few minutes the MES is Farting white smoke and Flames out of the loader every few seconds. Got on SMF and was told this was common and I was using Too Many Chips. I was loading up as many Chips as the Loader would hold, inserting and dumping. I then started only adding a small handful about a 1/4 cup and it was all good. In the Feb Throwdown I won an AMNPS and never used Chips again...JJ

 

[smokinhusker]

I've had the "popping" but nothing has ever blown out of the smoker and I really hope it doesn't!!!