Help with my new MES 30"

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boilerspecial

Newbie
Original poster
Mar 26, 2017
5
10
Hello

My local Lowe's had a discounted MES 30" for $160 and my wife was nice enough to buy me for Valentine's day. I smoked a pork shoulder first, using a full load of chips every 45-60 mins. I wanted more smoke and less work. I dusted off the 12" AMNTS from a previous setup and loaded it with fresh pellets from A-Maze-N products. I have since tried my luck with a brisket flat, ribs, chicken, and another shoulder. With the tube and MES, I am just getting more tar and creosote buildup than any of my previous smokers. After four smokes burning five 12" tubes of pellets (Apple, Pitmaster's, and Mesquite) every inch of the walls is dripping in thick black tar.  Ive read every thread I can find here, and elsewhere, about cleaning and creosote in a smoker. I fall more on the "clean the grates and drip-plates only" side of the spectrum than the "clean every smoke" crowd, but this seems excessive. I am wondering if this is due to the AMNTS or is this normal for this type of smoker? I absolutely love the MES 30 and the tube is a godsend, but the gunk is really starting to concern me for taste and fire safety reasons. With the exception of the chicken, which I haven't had much luck with in the past, the food didn't taste overly bitter. The ribs did seem a little more "spicy" than they should have, and I think creosote is to blame. For reference, I have been starting the MES ~1 hr before the meat goes in, with the lit tube and smoke being added ~30 mins prior to the meat. My smoker temp has been between 225 and 250 for all of the smokes up to this point. The tube has burned every time like a champ for 5-6 hrs fully loaded producing a moderate amount of smoke, but not billowing white smoke unless the door is opened for a long period. Would the AMNPS help with this problem? I don't want this dripping on my food. Any and all help would be appreciated. Below is a picture of the inside of the door, after a 30 minute scrub with a vinegar/water solution. Prior to this picture, the entire door had thick tarry streaks

 
Way too much Smoke---Too heavy (Dense).

I use an MES 40 (bigger than the MES 30), and a Tube puts out too much smoke for my MES 40 IMHO. And you're burning your built in chip burner at the same time???

I can't believe your tongue isn't tingling after eating anything with that heavy a smoke on it.

That's one of the reasons I like the window in my door, so I can look at the smoke through the Window, and see that it's too heavy.

If I can't see the back wall & the back half of the racks through the smoke when looking through the window, it's too thick (Smoke).

It's really hard to tell how heavy the smoke is in an MES by watching the smoke coming out the top vent.

If you were to get the AMNPS, and light one end, and put that in, without using the built in chip burner, you would more than likely have Perfect Smoke.

Bear
 
Thanks Bear!

I have not been using the chip burner and tube at the same time, and do not plan to. Im a little embarrassed to be having this issue. I will have to clean up the inside a little better while waiting for an AMNPS to ship. I will shoot for less smoke in my next cook. Another quick question, when do you put the lit AMNPS into the smoker in relation to smoker start? Thanks again for your help!

-BS
 
 
Thanks Bear!

I have not been using the chip burner and tube at the same time, and do not plan to. Im a little embarrassed to be having this issue. I will have to clean up the inside a little better while waiting for an AMNPS to ship. I will shoot for less smoke in my next cook. Another quick question, when do you put the lit AMNPS into the smoker in relation to smoker start? Thanks again for your help!

-BS
That depends on what I'm Smoking.

If it's anything I cured (Bacon, CB, BBB, Dried Beef, etc), I put it in once the surface of the meat is dry. (maybe an hour or so).

If it's just regular Smoking (Butts, Brisket, CSRs, Chicken, etc) then I put it in right away.

When I preheat my MES, I also fill my AMNPS or AMNS, and light it. Then by the time my MES is up to temp & going good, my AMNPS or AMNS is also smoking lightly & steady. It will get a little heavier after another hour or so with my Chip dumper pulled out a couple inches. 

If it gets a little on the heavy side, I push the chip dumper back in to cut the air flow down.

Hope that helps.

Bear
 
Doesn't hurt to scrape the walls down every once in a while. I use a putty knife and scrape the walls and ceiling to get it from building up. A clean system is better than a gummy one. I don't get mine spotless but I also don't have to worry about tar fires. Also is your vent wide open? Using a pan of water also? Might want to cut back on it if so. Like was mentioned before. Cut back on wood also. Don't soak the wood chips also. Doesn't help.
 
I have not been using any chips or water since trying to use the tube smoker. I only go vent fully open, with my thought being to prevent stale smoke and creosote. You see how well that worked. I will definitely give the inside a scrub and clean to prevent fire issues. I ordered the 5x8 pellet maze today, so hopefully that helps. Thank you both for your responses. I will post my next smoke to hopefully show some progress!
 
 
I have not been using any chips or water since trying to use the tube smoker. I only go vent fully open, with my thought being to prevent stale smoke and creosote. You see how well that worked. I will definitely give the inside a scrub and clean to prevent fire issues. I ordered the 5x8 pellet maze today, so hopefully that helps. Thank you both for your responses. I will post my next smoke to hopefully show some progress!
Giving it a good cleaning & going to the 5X8 AMNPS Tray should get you back on the right track with perfect smoking.

An MES and an AMNPS are a match made in Smoking Heaven.

Don't let me miss your First smoke with that going for you---I hate to miss Great Posts!! 
icon14.gif


Bear
 
Whatever happens don't give up hope. Patience. I've been working on experiments with another site member about smoke. Now I've had to restart my experiment and I was stumped on a certain one. I didn't give up hope. Just had me look in a different direction. Working on finishing the experiments and I'm going to publish soon. And yes it all deals with the creosote while smoking.
 
A year ago I started a similar thread to this one: Thinking of selling my MES 30.

I didn't sell it, and I'm still using it. I don't know if I'd get another one if this one fails, but it is so darned easy to use that it would be tough to give up.

Here are some of the things that made a difference for me.

1. Run it empty for at least an hour at full temp, every once in awhile. I do this instead of trying to clean the walls and door (although I do clean the gasket). I don't think cleaning it makes much difference to the taste of the food, but if you think you are getting a bitter taste, you can simply run it empty, at full temp, until you don't see any more smoke coming out of the vent. No smoke = no contamination on your food from the old "gunk."

2. Keep your racks clean. I don't clean the racks on my old Weber BBQ very often any more because the preheat burns off all the old stuff. However, by comparison to a gas grill, nothing in the MES ever gets very hot. You certainly do NOT need to worry about a fire hazard from any gunk inside catching on fire. The only thing that gets hot enough to cause a fire is the heating element itself, and it is well shielded from drips coming from the food or, if the smoker got really filthy, from the walls.

3. The biggest improvement, by far, was finally taking the hour to build my "mailbox mod." My version used a popcorn can: Mailbox (Popcorn) Mod. This will also dramatically reduce the amount of stuff building up on the walls of your smoker. There are a huge number of advantages to putting the smoke generator outside the MES: the smoke tastes better; you get less gunk on the walls; the AMNPS always stays lit; and you can cold smoke.

The "mailbox mod" changed my smoking life.
 
Yep. I agree with everything John said above. Best improvement was the mod. Just changed my box i had to a bigger one. About the size of 3 mail boxes. Running tests on it. Love my MES30.
 
I know some would advocate leaving the thing black inside "that's flavor". But You could put a bag over the element box and easy off the entire inside and hose it out. The easy off today is not as potent as the stuff from the 80's. Dam EPA.
 
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