Maybe someone can explain a few acronyms so I can better understand AMPS and PID .
I will probably just go with something brand new but mid price point. Sounds like for electric the MES is highly recommended.
Hi there and welcome!!!
Jonok
explains the acronyms pretty well.
Almost every single one of us MES or other electric element smoker owners move to using the A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker (AMPNS) tray or tube. You put wood pellets in them, light on fire for 10 min, blow out and it produces perfect smoke, no hassle!!! The tray produces smoke for up to 12 hours when full but you can put in whatever amount of pellets you want for any amount of smoking time you desire.
The pellet tube I believe puts out smoke for 3 hours and is a bit heavier smoke production but works in high altitude and lower oxygen (pellet grill smokers and MES30) environments.
Using an
AMNPS means perfect care free smoke without doing anything for your entire smoke. I also built a mailbox mod which is a mailbox with a 3inch duct joint connecting it to the MES chip loader hole. I put my
AMNPS tray in the mailbox and now I have smoke production from outside of the MES that is piped into the MES. This means I can cold smoke, I avoid issues with pellet flame ups (happens sometimes), and I never have to open the smoker to fool with smoke since they are independent and the pellets don't add as much heat when cold smoking :)
So rewiring an MES to use a PID Controller means you get rid of the temp swings so it holds like with in 1F degree of set temp which is awesome to not ruin sausage, bacon, and to be reliable. However it now makes the chip smoldering function useless because the element doesnt cycle on for long periods of time.
Since almost all of us MES owners use an
AMNPS because its a simple and major upgrade to loading chips constantly, there is really no loss in ability to burn chips.
PID Controller +
AMNPS = an MES smoker that is truly set and forget and outperforms even the most expensive smokers, electric or otherwise :)
Finally, MES are notorious for having bad temp and meat probes. It is super rare for an MES to actually be accurate measuring temps so basically all of us MES owners (and pretty much any smoker owner) buy wireless digital thermometers we can measure for accuracy in boiling water and can get very accurate readings to ignore the bad MES readings or innacurate thermometers that come with smokers.
I hope all this info helps! :)