NO smoke with Masterbuilt Electric Pro

KBCbrew said:

I have seen other posts on this issue and they all end up with the amazing pellet smoker.

This issue is getting personal with me and I want to try to make my smoker work on its own using chips. 

I am sure the issue is lack of airflow.   Could I adjust the door latch to leave it slightly open to create airflow?

Before making any adjustments to the door, try a small wedge on the lower lip of the door...allow just a small crack on the bottom of the door opening. This way the top should remain a fairly snug fit, so you don't loose heat. You can test it and find out if your theory is correct, then move forward with mods as indicated by your testing.

I saw on a thread somebody was going to make a chimney.  How would you do that and what would it do?

A chimney will increase draft through the smoke chamber, which could in turn create a more suitable environment for the existing smoke generation. Jig-saw or step-drill to open the existing hole larger would be best, then attach a thin-wall pipe with a rivet flange so it extends upwards from the smoke chamber. A damper may or may not be needed for fine-tuning the draft. Speaking from experience, verticals seldom need a chimney, unless for the sole purpose of tuning-in temp variances from top to bottom grate positions.

All there is on the smoker is a small hole on the back side on the upper left.

I'm not familiar with this smoker, but if there are no small holes down low for intake, there should be. This could likely be your easiest fix to get some air into the smoke wood.

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It's all about the amount of heat and air getting to the smoke wood. Too little of either and you get zip...too much and you get flare-ups of the smoke wood...find the right balance and you'll have that sweet, thin smoke we all love to see, smell and taste.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, if there's no smoke, it's likely too little heat getting to the smoke wood. If there's smoke at first, then nothing, it's enough heat to produce smoke, but too little air getting to the smoke wood...in this case, you should see somewhat, if not fully, charred smoke wood pieces.

Eric

I'm not sure if it's the lack of smoke as much as the chips burning up too quickly.  That's what I see in mine.

With all the effort you'll put into solving this, buying the AMNPS would be worth it in my opinion.

I don't know which Masterbuilt smoker you are talking about, I did a google and couldn't find a smoker by that name?  Could you link to some pics, is this the new "electric smoke house" as in the pic below?


If so just leave the feeding tube slightly open.

Before you do any cutting or drilling, remember Masterbuilt has been selling smokers that work just fine without any modification, so call Masterbuilt and talk to them first.  Yes there have been issues, and there is a retrofit kit for the 30 & 40" digital smokehouse models.  Again Masterbuilt addressed the problem, so find out from them first.

I am a novice and I had a similar problem with my Masterbnuilt gas smoker.  The chips stopped smoking ( blue smoke) after 20 minutes.  Is that normal?  I put 2 cups of chips in a smoker box with plenty of holes.  Tee vents on the smoker grill were wide open..

Maybe I have to change the chips after 20 minutes? 

MES won't generate smoke at temps less than 180*...just not hot enough to get the chips burning. 

Like Husker said, the MES does not like to smoke at lower temps. At higher temps this problem may not present itself. BTW If your chip tray is about 4" wide, call Masterbuilt and they will send out a retrofit that helps quite a bit.

Think of the chip tray as a cast iron skillet on an electric burner. When the heat is on...smoke, heat off... no smoke..the chips never get to the smoldering stage unless the burner/element is on long enough to get the chips smoldering on their own. 

One work around is to preheat the unit at a high temp and long enough to start the chips smoldering/glowing then turn the temp down to what you want to cook at, then regulating the air flow by leaving the loader pulled out a bit to maintain the self ignition. Bad part is,  it is difficult to see when more chips are needed and adding more may snuff out the embers you worked so hard to get, then you are starting all over again.

This is time consuming, your temps may swing wildly, and you must babysit your smoke in an attempt to get consistent results. Adding chips every 30-60 minutes is about the norm.

I know this is a personal thing, I've been there done that. This is supposed to be an "automatic" unit. Did the stack thing...great on cooler smokes, hotter ones allowed steam to condensate on the inside of the stack and drip back in on my product.

OK, so basically I'm lazy, I like a few adult beverages during the smoke, I like the set it, forget it mentality and only check the unit at planned times (every time you open it, just adds time)

I too thought that buying the AMNPS was a cop out. I soon learned that it is just another tool in my arsenal. I can do a 22 hour smoke and only need to check the product a few times during the process. I can cold smoke cheese and bacon, go low and slow on big cuts of meat or use the factory tray for fast and hot smoke cooking. Many options I would not have had before.

I'm not intending this to sound like a sales pitch and there are numerous products out there that do about the same thing. (check out the tin can and soldering iron trick) I don't think there is a perfect, all around smoker out there and little tools just make the experience of smoking more pleasurable.

I've heard it said that fishermen and golfers will buy about anything...I think smoking fanatics could be included in this club.

SmokinHusker said:

MES won't generate smoke at temps less than 180*...just not hot enough to get the chips burning. 

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My MES 40 with 800 watt element takes about 30 minutes from cold to 180º, during that time the element is ON, wood chips take about 3 minutes to start to smoke.  Thus the above statement is FALSE!

The real question is, will chips continue to smoke during the element on/off cycle while maintaining 180º?

Suggestion, preheat your MES to 225º for about an hour, you are getting all the mental inside hot, especially the chip tray.  Then add about 8 wood chips, they should smoke in 3-5 minutes, after 15 minutes add another 8 chips, do this 3 or 4 times.  You should have a hot bed of ash, now reset your MES to 180º and add 8-10 chips they should smoke just fine now that the tray is hot and has a nice bed of hot ash.  If you throw a few wood chips onto a bed of hot ash in a cool fireplace or camp fire with surrounding temp whatever the ambient is, those chips will smolder just fine, (smolder = smoke).

If for some reason you still have a problem, try breaking up a briquette into 2 or 3 pieces and let it get ignited in the MES or you light it with a torch then add to wood chip tray as an additional source of heat to ignite chips.

deltadude said:

SmokinHusker said:

MES won't generate smoke at temps less than 180*...just not hot enough to get the chips burning. 

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My MES 40 with 800 watt element takes about 30 minutes from cold to 180º, during that time the element is ON, wood chips take about 3 minutes to start to smoke.  Thus the above statement is FALSE! I respectfully disagree with your saying my statement is FALSE in so far as my MES 40 (1200 watt element) is concerned. It will NOT generate smoke at  when preheating to 180* and remaining at 180*. I've just experimented with mine and the details and pics are below. 

The real question is, will chips continue to smoke during the element on/off cycle while maintaining 180º?

Suggestion, preheat your MES to 225º for about an hour, you are getting all the mental inside hot, especially the chip tray.  Then add about 8 wood chips, they should smoke in 3-5 minutes, after 15 minutes add another 8 chips, do this 3 or 4 times.  You should have a hot bed of ash, now reset your MES to 180º and add 8-10 chips they should smoke just fine now that the tray is hot and has a nice bed of hot ash.  If you throw a few wood chips onto a bed of hot ash in a cool fireplace or camp fire with surrounding temp whatever the ambient is, those chips will smolder just fine, (smolder = smoke).

If for some reason you still have a problem, try breaking up a briquette into 2 or 3 pieces and let it get ignited in the MES or you light it with a torch then add to wood chip tray as an additional source of heat to ignite chips. 

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Not that it wouldn't generate it if done the way you outline. Generally I don't have the time or inclination to keep adding chips every 15 minutes, which results in about an hour of babysitting it,  to build up a bed of hot ash at 225*, then lowering the temp to 180* or whatever the desired lower temp is and allowing the unit to cool to that temp so I can start smoking the product.

So I thought I'd do a little experimenting to prove that little to no smoke is generated when the MES temp is preheated and allowed to stay at 180* for about an hour.

It took 26 minutes for my MES 40 to preheat to 180* from 52*.  
After it had leveled out at 180* after about 45 minutes, this is the amount I will put in the smoker. 
I let it ride at 180* for 30 minutes after adding the chip tray and chips to it   As you can see after 30 minutes with the unit set at 180*, the wood chips have not even started to burn.

So I gave them another 30 minutes, still having the unit set at 180* and this is what the chips look like after 1 hour in the 180* smoker 
Still no change, so I bumped it up to 225* and when it hit 200* the chips finally turned black. 

My conclusion is that my MES 40 will not even start the wood chips to smolder at 180*, nor will they even burn after an hour at 180*, without doing the procedure outlined above by DeltaDude. That's one reason the MES and AMNPS work so well together! 

Nice pictorial. I have the same results with mine with a 1200 w element, barely even a char, AND with the retrofit kit. Maybe a difference in box size??  I think it would be hard to beat a 16 hour cold smoke and only refilling the smoke generator once. I like toys....ooops sorry gadgets....damn, I meant  tools...gotta be careful how I word that.

Sound1 said:

Nice pictorial. I have the same results with mine with a 1200 w element, barely even a char, AND with the retrofit kit. Maybe a difference in box size??  I think it would be hard to beat a 16 hour cold smoke and only refilling the smoke generator once. I like toys....ooops sorry gadgets....damn, I meant  tools...gotta be careful how I word that.

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Thank you! Then I guess mine's not the only MES 1200 w element that barely chars the wood chips. I don't have the retrofit kit cause I just don't use the chip tray that often. There's no way I'd keep up with refilling wood chips for a 16 hr smoke - I won't do it when making jerky which only takes 7 hrs! Yep those "tools" are great!

As I said I have an older MES 40 with 800 watt element, and its the original chip tray without extra metal.

If 800 watts makes my chips smoke in 3 to 5 minutes the 1200 watts can do it.  The only thing you have proven is your MES is defective.

Your pics show the smaller tray, with extra metal between elements and tray.  Not only is there an extra piece of metal there is a bevel ridge that adds even more space between the element and chip tray.

My chip tray is larger and practically sits on the element.  Here is a pic someone else's smoker but shows the difference:


The flat piece of metal under the tray inserts below the two cross bars underneath the element.

There are several posts in this forum which will show you how to mod your tray assy so it will work properly.

I'm not suggesting that this is the best way, I just saying the MES works fine if working properly, I now use the AMNPS, however for years, didn't have that.  After the hot bet of ash is established you can then put in about 15 soaked chips which will smoke 30-40 minutes.  The reason Todd's AMNS and AMNPS has been such a huge success is he designed it to solve the MES problem of having to keep adding chips, and how to have consistent smoke.  I will say though 100% of the time using wood chips via the chip tray I achieve TBS with hickery chips, that TBS is not only light smoke but has a nice sweet smell which is the seasoning hitting meat.  So far I haven't noticed that nice sweet smell using the pellets or dust with the AMNPS, but I'm working on that.

Then I guess lots of us have defective Masterbuilt smokers. 

SmokinHusker said:

Then I guess lots of us have defective Masterbuilt smokers. 

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Maybe that is why there is a retro fit kit?

I suppose so. I use AMNPS for most smokes but after reading through your post on this, it sounds like the retro kit is needed. I'll be ordering it. Would it be a good idea to remove that extra piece of metal that prevents the tray from having closer contact with the element? 

Thank you for taking the time to explain and point out the retro kit. I didn't think I would need it with the AMNPS. 

Have you had any success getting your unit to work better? 

By your description, you have the 30" analogue version(no the MES 30/40), just like me.

Inquiring minds want to know...

 Would it be a good idea to remove that extra piece of metal that prevents the tray from having closer contact with the element?

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Yes, you can just remove the extra piece of metal from the existing "small chip tray" assembly and it will work just as well as the "large chip tray" assembly retro kit. That is what I did with my MES40 and it works fine. I do use the AMNPS most of the time but it is handy on occasion to have a chip tray that works too. As for how to remove the extra piece of metal, there are a few posts on this website that show how it is done, although it is easy to figure out.