Amaz-N-Smokers

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BGKYSmoker

Nepas OTBS #242
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Dec 25, 2010
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Rineyville, KY
Hey post your Amazn smoker tray, tube or which ever one you gots and lets look at them.

Here is my tray, close to 5 years (guessing) and still smoking strong. I have a grenade and expand tube i will locate also.

My tray, dirty but smokes on.

 

I don't have any of the newer ones, but these have worked well for years.

Check this out, I filled the whole tray with dust & lit both ends at the same time.

Talk about a perfect burn. I was smoking some salmon for lox.


Al
 
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Giving the new oval expandable it's second bacon smoke. Stretched to about 18" is all that will fit the mailbox.
Todd's Hickory pellets. I keep reading about people microwaving their pellets. I've never had an issue and it's safe to say humidity is at 100 percent! We'll see how long a smoke I get....


Dan
 
Here's my well seasoned fleet, minus the 6" tube. It's on loan to a buddy who's testing it out in his gas grill.

If he likes it (who wouldn't he'll buy one or the 12"'tube. Both can by bought locally at one of our sporting good stores!

 
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Giving the new oval expandable it's second bacon smoke. Stretched to about 18" is all that will fit the mailbox.
Todd's Hickory pellets. I keep reading about people microwaving their pellets. I've never had an issue and it's safe to say humidity is at 100 percent! We'll see how long a smoke I get....


Dan
I think most peeps who have to Nuke their pellets are using the AMNPS. I never needed to Nuke any either, and never needed a mailbox for anything other than my mail.

Bear
 
I think most peeps who have to Nuke their pellets are using the AMNPS. I never needed to Nuke any either, and never needed a mailbox for anything other than my mail.


Bear

I had one batch of Apple Pellets several years back that I had to nuke to get to burn in the tubes. Ever since then no problems.

I have never nuked any of the pellets I've run in the expando tube.
 
I think most peeps who have to Nuke their pellets are using the AMNPS. I never needed to Nuke any either, and never needed a mailbox for anything other than my mail.


Bear
I think it helps keep the heat from the burning pellets out of the chamber a bit by having that 3' of pipe to dissapate it a little for cold smoking.
Besides, it was fun to build!

:biggrin:
 
I had one batch of Apple Pellets several years back that I had to nuke to get to burn in the tubes. Ever since then no problems.

I have never nuked any of the pellets I've run in the expando tube.
Just about all I ever use any more is Hickory.

I quit trying to burn Cherry by itself. I believe it's the natural oil in the pitch pockets in cherry wood that causes the problem. 

If I want to use Cherry, I mix it with Hickory.

Bear
I think it helps keep the heat from the burning pellets out of the chamber a bit by having that 3' of pipe to dissapate it a little for cold smoking.
Besides, it was fun to build!

biggrin.gif
Sure---There are other reasons for the MB, other than air flow for AMNPS.

However I don't have that much room on my front porch for more toys, so I leave my mailbox at the end of my Driveway.

If I want to Cold Smoke, I use Sawdust instead of pellets, and if it's hot outside, like today, I would put a frozen Jug of Water in my water pan.

For me---Nothing's fun to build anymore.
icon_sad.gif


Bear
 
Just about all I ever use any more is Hickory.
I quit trying to burn Cherry by itself. I believe it's the natural oil in the pitch pockets in cherry wood that causes the problem. 
If I want to use Cherry, I mix it with Hickory.

Bear
I know others have issues with cherry, but in the tubes I've never had a problem burning straight cherry. One of my go to smoke woods.
 
 
Just about all I ever use any more is Hickory.
I quit trying to burn Cherry by itself. I believe it's the natural oil in the pitch pockets in cherry wood that causes the problem. 
If I want to use Cherry, I mix it with Hickory.

Bear
I know others have issues with cherry, but in the tubes I've never had a problem burning straight cherry. One of my go to smoke woods.
You'll have to excuse my narrow thinking---I'm always talking about the AMNPS when I talk about how good it works with which pellets.

Exactly---The Tube is a whole different ballgame. If people have problems keeping anything burning in a Tube, they have a serious air flow problem or bad (wet) pellets.

The only trouble I ever had with the Tube was too much smoke. I guess that's why my AMNPS works perfectly.

Bear

Bear
 
Since you guys all agree that the tube seems to burn better than the AMNPS, I'm curious to find out why you think that is the case.

Does it provide better air contact to the pellets within?  Or is it larger in cross section, so that there are more pellets in any given "length", and that larger "cherry" helps keep things going, and, effectively pre-dries the pellets near the flame-front so that the moisture is driven out of the pellets as the burn progresses?

Also, I'd be curious to find out at what elevations you folks are located.

I'm at 5300 feet or so here, and normally I have no problems with various of Todd's pellets in an AMNPS in my MES-40.  But I do nuke or bake them, or I just put the AMNPS loaded with the pellets into the smoker while I'm pre-heating it so that they get dried ahead of time.

And usually, it's quite dry around here.  We're high and dry.  And that dryness may be why I've had such good luck, even at this elevation, as long as I pre-dry the pellets.

But recently, I've had a couple of failures of the pellets to burn, dying out at between 1 and 2 hours into the smoke.  And the only thing different has been high humidity (like 50 to 70%).  I've been told (in other threads - so forgive me for beating the same horse in multiple threads!) that 5300' is too high for the AMNPS.  But the fact that it normally works for me, but has failed during high humidity leads me to believe that the relatively high elevation here demands dry conditions.

There's another thread going on right now about humidity effect on pellet burning.

Based on my recent observations, I'm sure that the pellets can absorb moisture during the course of a smoke.  And if other factors are such that your system is close to the edge of proper burning, then humidity may well be a big factor.

On the other hand, if you are at a low elevation and have good air flow, then pellet moisture content may not be enough to tip the balance.

It's interesting!

OK.  A few photos just to keep this post on topic!








Last batch of jerky.  Mmmmm! :)
 
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Since you guys all agree that the tube seems to burn better than the AMNPS, I'm curious to find out why you think that is the case.

Does it provide better air contact to the pellets within?  Or is it larger in cross section, so that there are more pellets in any given "length", and that larger "cherry" helps keep things going, and, effectively pre-dries the pellets near the flame-front so that the moisture is driven out of the pellets as the burn progresses?

Also, I'd be curious to find out at what elevations you folks are located.

I'm at 5300 feet or so here, and normally I have no problems with various of Todd's pellets in an AMNPS in my MES-40.  But I do nuke or bake them, or I just put the AMNPS loaded with the pellets into the smoker while I'm pre-heating it so that they get dried ahead of time.

And usually, it's quite dry around here.  We're high and dry.  And that dryness may be why I've had such good luck, even at this elevation, as long as I pre-dry the pellets.

But recently, I've had a couple of failures of the pellets to burn, dying out at between 1 and 2 hours into the smoke.  And the only thing different has been high humidity (like 50 to 70%).  I've been told (in other threads - so forgive me for beating the same horse in multiple threads!) that 5300' is too high for the AMNPS.  But the fact that it normally works for me, but has failed during high humidity leads me to believe that the relatively high elevation here demands dry conditions.

There's another thread going on right now about humidity effect on pellet burning.

Based on my recent observations, I'm sure that the pellets can absorb moisture during the course of a smoke.  And if other factors are such that your system is close to the edge of proper burning, then humidity may well be a big factor.

On the other hand, if you are at a low elevation and have good air flow, then pellet moisture content may not be enough to tip the balance.

It's interesting!

OK.  A few photos just to keep this post on topic!


















Last batch of jerky.  Mmmmm! :)

As a disclaimer I have not tried the mazes. It was recommended since I use a propane smoker that the tube performs better, due to the low oxygen environment. Why it does I can only guess but I'm sure it has to do with a tighter concentration of pellets in the tube. The old style tube burns slower than the new oval expando tube. I believe this has to do with the larger air inlets on the sides. I have no issues getting pellets to burn year round. I live at 3,600 feet. During the winter we average 40 degrees with lows in the 20's. Summer's are hot average upper 70's lows in the 40-50's. Pretty dry but we do get some humidity.
 
As a disclaimer I have not tried the mazes. It was recommended since I use a propane smoker that the tube performs better, due to the low oxygen environment. Why it does I can only guess but I'm sure it has to do with a tighter concentration of pellets in the tube. The old style tube burns slower than the new oval expando tube. I believe this has to do with the larger air inlets on the sides. I have no issues getting pellets to burn year round. I live at 3,600 feet. During the winter we average 40 degrees with lows in the 20's. Summer's are hot average upper 70's lows in the 40-50's. Pretty dry but we do get some humidity.
Thanks!

That's good info.  I do think the larger amount of pellets all together must help.  And the expando tube gives you even more of a good thing.  Someone recommended I get a tube smoke generator in one of the other threads, right off when I mentioned my troubles.  Anything that helps in a low oxygen environment is what I probably need.

3600 feet isn't quite as bad as here, but it's certainly going to be different than sea level for you.  We get greater extremes of temperature here, but on average it may be similar to what you have.  I'm looking at ways to allow me to smoke under all conditions here, and to that end, I will seriously look at getting an expando-tube. That seems like an easy fix for those of us who are "on the edge" of good combustion!  You're not the first person to say how well it works for you.

I also got me a mailbox last night.  I'll need to put legs on my ANPS, too, for the mailbox even though I have the rails to set it on when it's inside the MES itself.  So I may play with that whole system, too.

For one thing, I do like smoking cheese.  And getting the smoke cooled down before it goes into the MES seems like a worthy enterprise!

I may play with a fan-forced mailbox setup, too.  But that might be complete overkill.

Just getting an expando tube may be all that's necessary here.
 
For what it's worth, I did some bacon yesterday with the oval tube pulled out to 17" (all that would fit the mailbox). Using Todd's Hickory pellets it smoked steady for 6 1/2 hrs down to the last pellet. Love it!
 
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