# seasoning new mailbox set-up for MES?



## doughboysigep (Jan 25, 2018)

I made my mailbox attachment for my MES and smoked some cheese a few weeks ago.  Should I have "seasoned" the unit with smoke prior to using it?  I never read anything stating that, but the cheese had a slight "metallic" taste.  Maybe it was just in my head and seems to have mellowed a bit.  If seasoning is recommended, is the one smoke (3.5 hr.) good enough?


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## gmc2003 (Jan 25, 2018)

I don't have a MES or a mailbox mod, but I did do a burn off when I first got my AmazN tray. 

Chris


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## tallbm (Jan 25, 2018)

doughboysigep said:


> I made my mailbox attachment for my MES and smoked some cheese a few weeks ago.  Should I have "seasoned" the unit with smoke prior to using it?  I never read anything stating that, but the cheese had a slight "metallic" taste.  Maybe it was just in my head and seems to have mellowed a bit.  If seasoning is recommended, is the one smoke (3.5 hr.) good enough?



Well I believe you have seasoned it now after that 1 smoke :D

I have a hunch that the taste issues are coming from the smoke.  When cold smoking it is harder to get the smoke to circulate and leave the smoker.  Stale smoke is bad for flavor and you can more easily produce stale smoke with a cold smoke than you can with a hot smoke.

The mellowing out is a common thing people seem to report with cheese.  I had the same kind of experience where my first cold smoke left my salmon lox a little strong with smoke flavor but it mellowed out.  The next time I did the same smoke I built a little contraption to force a draft/suck the smoke up through the smoker so it wouldn't linger and be stale.  Additionally I put a little metal scrubbie in the duct joint of my mailbox mod to act as a creosote filter for the cold smoke.
The combo seemed to have fixed my issues and the smoke flavor was never too hard and there was no need to let the smoke and meat mellow.

My little homemade contraption to force draft/suck the smoke out is below.  I place it over the vent hole of my MES and plug it in.  The blower fan blows up the tube causing a draft which sucks the air/smoke from the smoker at a great pace (not to fast not too slow).
I hope this info helps :)


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