masterbuilt cold smoker kit

[Bearcarver]

i bought a smoke daddy for my mes and it worked pretty good i thought and didnt raise temp

Be careful, those Smoke Daddies get out of hand and put out much too much smoke (either none or too much).

I don't know what part of PA you're from, but those things are illegal if you live near the PA Tpk. Causing too many accidents.

Bear

 

[fuzzyfishin]

 With my mes kit I just shim it. Easy in and out. Very little loss of smoke at that point.

  Do you turn the kit off after smoke rolling? I have been with good results. I take the tray from the kit out and place foil on the bottom. Also if breezy I use the tray as a damper.

 I have mixed chips with wood dust seems to work better with not haveing to knock chips down.

 I just picked up wood shavings. Thinking that it might work better yet. Will post.

 

[bhines79]

Is it possible to use wood chips in the amzn smokers?

 

[sctdg35]

Stayhot what you said about the AMNPS is right on the money ,it is very unreliable as to whether it will stay lit. Did all the tricks to make it work,microwave pellets,chip drawer and loader pulled leaving it out of smoker longer after lighting and different placement in the MES. I found the answer . It is called a Masterbuilt electric cold smoker. People on this site are very hung up on the amnps and don't like the Masterbuilt cold smoker .I have no problems with it at all and burn all kinds of variations of wood and even broken up lump charcoal in it .Been using it for a year now and love it .I don't mess with the hook set up mentioned here ,all I do is slide it into the side of the MES ,load it and switch it on .Smoke in 10 minutes at most and lasts for about 6 hours on one load .All I can say is WORKS FOR ME !!

 

[Bearcarver]

 
For me the AMNPS is a crap shoot, sometimes it works beautifully and other times is a real struggle to keep it smoking. I've tried just about everything to make this work: chips drawer, chip feeder tube pulled out, added a stack, pre-dried the pellets in a stove, I just used it again this past weekend for ribs and I ended up going back to sawdust in the MES pan. For those of you that are saying that this works so good what are you doing to get it to work?

What are we doing?

I guess it depends on the individual smoker. Mine is a Gen #1:

All I do is light mine real good, getting a really big red cherry going in the bottom of the row. Then I put it in---That's it.

I keep my pellets & Dust dry in screw-capped jugs.

I never nuked any pellets, never pulled the chip drawer or the chip dumper out.

Just light it really good (Most important !!!), then put it in bottom, on the bars to left of chip burner assembly. Goes out about 11 hours later.

This is with Hickory Pellets.

Bear

 

[tabasco813]

Hello.  I am fairly new to the Masterbuilt electric smoker (only had it since Christmas) and REALLY new to the cold smoking side of things.  I just bought the Masterbuilt cold smoker attachment.  I bought it so I could cold smoke cheese and add some additional smoke to my beef and pork.  First of all, here is how I set it up so that I don't have to detach it if I don't want to.  I had an extra furniture dolly in the attic, and I added some extra 1x4" pieces of wood and the cold smoker and the attachment sit on the furniture dolly.  I can easily roll the smoker out of the garage and back whenever I want to use them.  Even when I didn't have the cold smoker attachment, I still put the smoker on this dolly and it makes it very convenient to move around.  You can get the furniture dolly for about $20 at Lowe's, Home Depot etc.  

As for the cold smoking of the cheese...it was just eh.  I was pretty disappointed.  I smoked it with apple wood for about 4 hours watching the internal temperature and made sure it never got over 90 degrees F.  I smoked a 2" thick round of provolone on a hot humid 80 degree day.  The color of the cheese did not change dramatically and the flavor is smoky but not in a good way.  It kind of tastes like bitter, like "burning, wet rolled up newspapers."  I know that doesn't sound pleasant but I don't know how to describe it.  I don't know what I did wrong.  The only thing that I could think that might have gone wrong is that I had a couple of flare ups in the cold smoking chimney when I was refueling the attachment (putting more wood chips in the chimney).

Any suggestions to get the smokey flavor with out wet newspaper taste would be greatly appreciated.

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smoker.jpg

• tabasco813
• Sep 2, 2014

 

[catch-22]

How long did you let the cheese mellow in the fridge after smoking?

 

[tabasco813]

Thanks.  The cheese was a little sweaty...I just thought that was how it was supposed to be.  I also put ice in the liquid pan to keep the temp inside down.  It sounds like I did several things wrong but I will try again on a much cooler day with room temp cheese etc.  How can I get that dramatically, beautiful brown color (and flavor) on the outside of the cheese?

 

[catch-22]

Also with the cold smoker it helps to run it for 30 min and then turn off for 30 min. Then repeat for the full 2 hours.

That puts out a lot of smoke.

 

[tjohnson]

The MES is a pretty small cabinet

I found that closing the door and allowing it to catch on the latch, gives enough air flow thru the smoker

Remember, you're trying to pass a trickle of smoke past your cheese, not FOG it!

Also, I never smoke cheese for more than 2 hours

We can eat the smoked cheese the next day...no bitter taste

 

[tabasco813]

Initially overnight.  But it is still wrapped up sitting in the back of the fridge.  I will be brave and try it again and see if it mellowed out any.  Thanks.

 

[catch-22]

Give it a couple weeks to mellow out. You may be pleasantly surprised.

I like Todd's idea with the door latch.

 

[smokinmate]

 
ok JJ sold me on the Q-MATZ, just went to the site and order me about 4' of it, did not order the AMNPS  ( yet) will play around with my mes cold smoker a little more and see what i come up with. Thanks for  help.

Jullie J (JJ)

I to use  the MB cold smoke unit. I am not sure why they call it a cold smoke unit as it really does not cold smoke per se. I do not use the attachment to hook the unit to the MES. I also move my MES in and out of the garage. I have marked the pavement where I sit the MES at. I have adjusted the legs on the smoke unit to the right height to match the MES. I just position the two units and shove them together. I have virtually no loss of smoke and can move the unit quite easily. I do not have any experience with the AMNPS unit but there are quite a number of people here that like it.

 

[daricksta]

 
What are we doing?

I guess it depends on the individual smoker. Mine is a Gen #1:

All I do is light mine real good, getting a really big red cherry going in the bottom of the row. Then I put it in---That's it.

I keep my pellets & Dust dry in screw-capped jugs.

I never nuked any pellets, never pulled the chip drawer or the chip dumper out.

Just light it really good (Most important !!!), then put it in bottom, on the bars to left of chip burner assembly. Goes out about 11 hours later.

This is with Hickory Pellets.

Bear

I've been talking to Chef Jimmy J about keeping the AMNPS lit. He suggests to hold the torch UNDER the AMNPS and light an inch or so behind the hole. He says it's the pellets burning underneath which keep the heat going and keep the pellets on top smoking. He says a 5 minute burn is all it takes for the pellets to stay lit.  I've done a hybrid of through the hole, over and under the AMNPS and I've had no problems keeping it lit the last three times I've used it. Number four will be tomorrow when I smoke my first chuckie.

 

[Bearcarver]

 
I've been talking to Chef Jimmy J about keeping the AMNPS lit. He suggests to hold the torch UNDER the AMNPS and light an inch or so behind the hole. He says it's the pellets burning underneath which keep the heat going and keep the pellets on top smoking. He says a 5 minute burn is all it takes for the pellets to stay lit.  I've done a hybrid of through the hole, over and under the AMNPS and I've had no problems keeping it lit the last three times I've used it. Number four will be tomorrow when I smoke my first chuckie.

Jimmy is right. That's why I blow down & in when I'm building that cigar-like cherry in the bottom. It's accomplishing the same thing, but I find it easier than getting the flame through the steel bottom.

The bottom is where you want the big cherry. I leave mine out longer than 5 minutes---more like 20 minutes, but I don't take chances on it going out---I needs me smoke fix!!!

Bear

 

[daricksta]

 
Jimmy is right. That's why I blow down & in when I'm building that cigar-like cherry in the bottom. It's accomplishing the same thing, but I find it easier than getting the flame through the steel bottom.

The bottom is where you want the big cherry. I leave mine out longer than 5 minutes---more like 20 minutes, but I don't take chances on it going out---I needs me smoke fix!!!

Bear

Since I've been following your suggestions which you gave me about a month or so ago, I've had solid smoke the past three times I've used my MES. I'm going to try JImmy's method today as an experiment but I know that your method is no-fail. The important experiment will be how successfully these methods work when the weather turns cold and humid/rainy here.

 

[kentuckycal]

I went ahead and bought the Masterbuilt cold smoker just now because I could get it for 'free' with reward points from my credit card (so it's not exactly free, but it's not like I had to directly pay for it).  Will post a review after some usage.

 

[daricksta]

 
I went ahead and bought the Masterbuilt cold smoker just now because I could get it for 'free' with reward points from my credit card (so it's not exactly free, but it's not like I had to directly pay for it).  Will post a review after some usage.

Cool. Will be very curious to see how you like it.

 

[crazy smoker]

Bought the masterbuilt electric smoker 20072612 with the cold smoker sidekick. Made mac and cheese, my first time ever smoking something and it didn't go well. I cooked at 225 for an hour and smoked the whole time. It was producing a lot of smoke, which is the problem because the food was too smokey.

The cold smoker does not have a variable smoke option it's just on or off. I believe I need to turn off the smoker part for a good part of the smoking, I'm guessing leave it smoke for about ten minutes then turn it off, that's a wild guess. Btw I'm using cherry wood chip from Home Depot.

Any help would be great.

 

[daricksta]

Bought the masterbuilt electric smoker 20072612 with the cold smoker sidekick. Made mac and cheese, my first time ever smoking something and it didn't go well. I cooked at 225 for an hour and smoked the whole time. It was producing a lot of smoke, which is the problem because the food was too smokey.

The cold smoker does not have a variable smoke option it's just on or off. I believe I need to turn off the smoker part for a good part of the smoking, I'm guessing leave it smoke for about ten minutes then turn it off, that's a wild guess. Btw I'm using cherry wood chip from Home Depot.

Any help would be great.

Crazy smoker, what I can tell you in general advice is that the cold smoker is just that: a smoker used with little or no heat when smoking. You would use it with cheeses, salmon, things where smoking with heat would ruin the food, like melting the cheese. I've never smoked mac and cheese; did you make up the recipe or did you find one? Typically when you smoke it's a low and slow process. I just saw a smoked bacon mac and cheese recipe that called for smoking at 225 degrees for 2-3 hours. Beef brisket for example would be smoked at temps between 215* and 245* (VERY generally speaking) for anywhere from 6-12 hours or so. If you were using wood chips in both the MES and the cold smoker at the same time that would have produced way too much smoke. It needs to be one or the other.

You're also using wood chips, which is what the MES was designed for. To me, wood chips give off too much smoke and they burn out too quickly so that you're always adding more chips every 30 minutes or so, and of course the amount you add can vary so that also makes the smoke inconsistent. Many of here use pellet or dust smokers from A-MAZE-N Products, owned by Todd Johnson who's also a member of this forum. You've got a MES40 Gen 2 so the placement of a pellet smoker (which is what I use) would be different from where I place it in my smoker. A pellet smoker would give you even, thin blue smoke (TBS) up to 11 hours or so. You can get pellets in every wood type that you can get in wood chips.

Hope this helps.