# Masterbuilt Slow Smoker attachment



## srkays (Jun 22, 2017)

Interested if anyone has used Masterbuilt's Electric Smoker (MES) Slow Smoker attachment?

Just purchased the slow smoker attachment for my 40" digital MES.  What lead me into buying it was the lack of smoke when I recently smoked some King Mackerel fillets.  My recipe for smoked King Mackerel calls for a cooking temp of between 170F - 180F. 

Will keep you posted on how my next smoking effort...pork butts...go.


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## SmokinAl (Jun 22, 2017)

You may want to put a tube between the smoke generator & the smoker, because those things create a lot of creosote.

The creosote will stay in the tube & you will get clean smoke on your food.

Here is my setup for cold smoking bacon.













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__ SmokinAl
__ Jun 22, 2017


















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__ SmokinAl
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Hope this helps!

Al


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## jc2133 (Jun 22, 2017)

What diameter tube did you use and does the length matter? I was thinking about getting this attachment so i dont have to open and close the door when emptying the ash tray letting heat out. 




SmokinAl said:


> You may want to put a tube between the smoke generator & the smoker, because those things create a lot of creosote.
> 
> The creosote will stay in the tube & you will get clean smoke on your food.
> 
> ...


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## srkays (Jun 22, 2017)

One would think Masterbuilt would have thought of this.  I also think it depends on how long you have the smoke on.

And that was another question I have for the group.  Hypothetically speaking, let's say it takes 3 hours to smoke whole chickens at 225F.  Do you smoke the ENTIRE 3 hours or 2 hours.  I read somewhere you do not want to smoke too long for the creosote to build up, which as Al pointed out is not a good thing for taste.


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## johnmeyer (Jun 22, 2017)

The creosote is a function of how your smoke is created, not on how long you smoke your food. Put another way, if you are generating "x" amount of creosote in one hour, then if you smoke for two hours you will get "2x". Thus, the creosote doesn't just happen at the beginning or end of the smoke.

I am no expert, but I've read a lot about creosote not only in this forum but also in a couple of other sites that have done some interesting scientific experiments. From what I've read there are LOTS of things which affect how much creosote gets produced including:

The temperature at which the wood burns;
The amount of oxygen the wood receives;
The amount of "turnover" the smoking enclosure gets (how many times per hour the volume of smoky air in the smoker is replaced);
The relative temperature of the external smoke generator and the smoke box
These all conspire to increase or decrease the amount of creosote that not only gets produced, but more importantly, how much gets deposited on the food.

The long tube you see in that picture is an attempt to get the creosote to condense before it reaches the smoking chamber. Several members have created some stunningly long tubing runs in an attempt to increase the amount of this condensation, especially when cold smoking. Having created my own external smoking enclosure ("mailbox mod"), I've played around a bit with various things and while there is absolutely no doubt that a lot of gunk condenses on the walls of the smoke generator chamber, and on the walls of the tube connecting that to the smoke box, I'm still not entirely convinced that this is the thing to focus on. My sense is that even though it looks like a lot of gunk, the smoke that makes it through is still full of bad stuff. Put another way, I don't think the condensation process discriminates that much between "good" and "bad" components in the smoke.

By contrast, I think the temperature of the burn and the amount of oxygen may have a lot more to do with getting really good-tasting smoke. I say this because most of the competition setups I've seen on the Internet and on TV do NOT have any long tube between the smoke generator and the food, and if this was needed, then all the pros would be doing it. Instead, the pros seem to be using mostly offset smokers, and they generate both the heat and the smoke with wood that is burning really hot, and with lots of oxygen.

If the Masterbuilt smoke generator has vents, I'd start by playing around with those (open them up) before spending too much time and money adding multiple feet of tubing. Also, the longer the tubing, the bigger the cleanup chore will be because, for the tube to keep condensing gunk, it has to be reasonably clean, I think.


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