Mailbox (Popcorn) Mod (with a small twist)

Dabigbozman said:

Have you pulled it,apart yet to see how it worked?

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Yes, I reported about this in my post #12 above. The short version: it worked really well, 100x better than the lint filters that I initially tried. It is definitely worth trying, especially since the material is so cheap and so readily available.

TallBM said:

 
I'll keep an eye out for the pics!

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OK, here is the "filter" after I cleaned it. Think of this as the "before" picture:


An here it is after I smoked some salmon:


The lid and can capture even more. If I had a sensitive scale, I might be able to weigh it before and after. Here is the lid after I cleaned it in my ultrasonic cleaner (which is how I cleaned the filter). Once again, think of this as the "before" photo:


And here is what it looks like after the smoke:


The amount of gunk in the can after just one smoke is pretty amazing, perhaps a little frightening. Do I want this stuff on my food?? Yikes!!

The mod was the best thing I ever did for my MES smoker. The smoke taste is infinitely better, and I hardly have to work at all for many simple smokes. The convenience is not just from avoiding the constant chip loader feeding, but is also due to the fact that I don't have to open the MES to adjust or check on the AMNPS, and also that I can let the residual AMNPS chips burn out while I am already cleaning out the smoker.

The popcorn can is, IMHO, the best enclosure I've seen posted. I say this because getting a mailbox that is made of the right material is tough: plastic won't work at all, and anything with a coating or painting is bad. Also, mailboxes are expensive. By contrast, as you saw from my links, you can get a plain popcorn/candy tin for about $12, and if you receive a "Popcorn Factory" or similar gift this season, you may have a tin already hanging around. You then buy two $4 elbows at Home Depot, giving you a total cost of under $20, excluding the AMNPS. If you buy the little filters, they are another $3-4.

The only two things I might do differently would be to add some sort of adjustable air vent, so I could increase or decrease the air flow. I was waiting to find a really good post about how to adjust the combustion, inside of any smoking device, to get the optimal airflow for creating tasty smoke, so I could have some intelligence behind my adjustable vent construction. I think this will be a good addition, once I know how to proceed.

The other thing would be to get a can that is about 1" wider. My AMNPS only goes down into the can about 3/4 of the way. The good news with this arrangement is that there is plenty of airflow underneath; the bad news is that I think I am not getting quite as much smoke deposition on the side wall as I would get if the tray were down another few inches. However, this is so minor that I'm not tempted in the least to re-build it, and I don't think it would really make that much difference.

Interesting idea, but a second tin would be a lot of space, weight, etc., just to regulate the air.

What I have in mind is similar to what I did when I first tried making an external smoking attachment for my MES. I created the world's cheapest, dumbest external smoker that consisted of nothing more than a tin can and a 3.5" sheet metal elbow. I put a charcoal briquet into the can, lit the briquet, added some chips, and stuck it into the chip loader. It worked, sort of. Here is what it looked like.


I then decided to regulate the airflow. I did this by taking the lid from a "pop top" tin can and screwing it over the end of the can that you see in the picture above. The result of this very quickly-created prototype is shown below. As you can see, it operates similarly to the Weber BBQ vents.



This is what I am thinking of doing on the side of my existing popcorn tin, although I'd obviously fabricate the "real" vent much more carefully that what is shown here with my "proof of concept" creation.