MES 40 Temps

[sodak]

Only having had my MES 40 for a couple of weeks, I decided to try to figure how much hotter the smoker is compared to the temp I have it set at.  So I took a 5 hour chunk of time when the door had been closed for at least the first hour and wrote down times, temp setting, Hi temp and Low temp.  I was hoping somebody here could maybe help me figure out what my temp diffenence was.  

So I was cooking a brisket using Bears step by step guide and it was suppose to cook at 220*.  I knew my smoker ran hot so I started at 213* instead.  The average temp of the smoker for the 2 hour and 45 minutes (taking temp readings twice on my Maverick ME732) was 226*.  So I decided to drop the temp on the smoker to 210 figuring it would maybe drop it right where I want it and the avg temp actually went up to 227.5* for the next 2 hours also taking 2 temp reads.  

Is this normal for the set temp to go down but cabinet temp to go up?  It seems to me that my MES is bout 10* off, or should I try to be more exact and go with like 13* or 14* less when I use it?  I did this on the assumption that when you cook on an MES40 you are looking at your cooking temp to be an average since it can't keep a consistent temp, is my thinking right?

Sorry, I don't have any pics of my brisket between the time experiment and being really hungry when it was done, I forgot.  I can tell you it was good and I thank Bear for the help guide.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[themule69]

My old generation MES has about a 3 deg swing. I have sand in the water pan covered in foil.

Your water is evaperating. I think

David

 

[sodak]

Thanks for the reply.  After I read it, I remembered I didn't use any water because I was trying my AMNPS that I had just received in the mail.  I have been reading about the sand method.  How much sand do you put in it and then cover if with foil?

 

[s2k9k]

It was probably the brisket warming up. When you put cold meat in the smoker the temp will usually drop and as the meat warms up the temp will come up. A brisket is a pretty large mass so it's temp will greatly affect chamber temp.