So I have been looking at the 40" MES at sams club and then I saw a 30" MES at homedepot for a lot cheaper. What are the big difference between the two?
MODEL: 20070106 is the old model and to replace the element you have to replace the entire body assembly.well...this is what my MES 30 says on the back.
Voltage: 120vac
Amps: 5.4a
watts: 650
Hertz: 60
MODEL: 20070106
Serial #: GA040923
Dan
You could do just about anything you want, but why take a small smoker, that barely has enough room for meat, and pack it with heating elements. If I were you, and I wanted to play, I'd get the bigger MES 40, or just build one from scratch. The MES 40 with the 1200 watt element is closer to over-powered than under-powered, so a PID would at least make sense in that one. It sounds like anything you buy will not be satisfactory, and you got your heart set on a PID, so what the heck----build your own. You can get all kinds of help on this forum for building your own.those are my thought two bearcarver..why the hell would anyone put such a small heating element into a smoker this size. So...on that note.....could I ADD another 650 watt element to this MES that I have..to take the total watts up to 1300...and then control the extra 650 watt element with the PID to help keep temps more stable? Couldn't I mount the extra element right through the sidewall of the MES....or does anyone have another small element that would work to mount right through the sidewall?
I have seen some heating elements where they come in a "straight stick" and then you can bend it to fit your needs. WHere would I find such a beast?
Dan
Dan,damn..that stinks. so this model 30 inch I have only has a 650 watt heater element? That sucks
I guess I am going to hit sams club and buy the new 40 inch.
Dan
http://www.drillspot.com/products/518310/tempco_csf00014_finned_strip_ss_heaterthose are my thought two bearcarver..why the hell would anyone put such a small heating element into a smoker this size. So...on that note.....could I ADD another 650 watt element to this MES that I have..to take the total watts up to 1300...and then control the extra 650 watt element with the PID to help keep temps more stable? Couldn't I mount the extra element right through the sidewall of the MES....or does anyone have another small element that would work to mount right through the sidewall?
I have seen some heating elements where they come in a "straight stick" and then you can bend it to fit your needs. WHere would I find such a beast?
Dan
Thanks DD,I'm sorry I am going to disagree with the statement that the MES 40" is underpowered with a 800 watt element. For my climate area 800 watts is plenty, provided a few simple procedures are followed. If you do a heat calc on the BTUs necessary to bring a box to 300º F the size of the MES 40" you will find that 1200 watts is way over power. Even 800 watts is slightly over power, that is why the 6 rack Bradley is only using a 500 watt, based on simple heat calcs. The problem is we all don't live in Calif. Some have to deal with extreme cold, or extreme meat loads, which will require greater BTUs of heat to accomplish the mission. So Masterbuilt listened to MES owners complaints about recovery time and time to get to set heat time in colder climates. Rather that up the element by say 200 watts to 1000 they put in the largest element 1200w they could and still have it safely operate on a 15 amp circuit. Only time will tell if the bigger is better approach works without causing increased unit failures. What we do know is that everyone who has the newer higher watt units seem to be happy so far.
For us older unit owners, preheating will make the difference in how the MES not only performs over the whole cook, but improve temp recovery when the door is opened. In the summer I preheat for 1 hour, when the outdoor ambient starts to drop I go to 2 hours. If the temps are close to freezing or below, I have preheated as long as 3 hours with the controller set to 270º. The manual says that preheating isn't necessary, and I tried using the MES without preheating. But I noticed it took over an hour and sometimes 2 or 3 hours to get up to heat depending on outdoor ambient or size of the load. I also noticed that after 3 hours of use temp recovery was really fast. So I concluded that once all the metal is thoroughly heated, temp recovery would be faster. Normally with preheat recovery is 5-10 minutes instead of 30+ minutes. Naturally when the outdoor temp is cold it takes longer to thoroughly heat all the metal and insulation. It's basic physics, heat always goes to cold. So if you put meat in at the room temp of your kitchen say 75º, and the metal temp is 50º or colder a huge amount of heat is going to whatever is colder, your meat is still cooking but not as efficiently as say in the summer when the heat doesn't have to over come huge amount of heat loss.
Having said all that, when my older MES 40 heat element connections finally fail, I will rewire with heavier gauge wire and connectors, and either replace the element with a 1000-1200 element, or I will use the 800w and add a 2nd stage 300-400 watt element, that will only be on when the internal temp drops 15º or more.