AMNPS and dust

[goldmine1965]

I am thinking of cold smoking some cheese. I have a MES30 and will use the AMNPS in a mailbox mod.
Will the AMNPS with dust stay lit without the MES being on? Is there some kind of draft needed?
I though someone on this forum had trouble with pellets staying lit without the MES being on.

Thanks

 

[smokin pop-pop]

I’m not sure about how your mod is set up but I’m pretty sure as long as you have a couple holes drilled in the door of the mailbox and your damper adjusted properly you should be able to create enough draft for the dust to make smoke. I use a tube smoker in my propane smoker for cold smoking bacon and I don’t turn the propane on , I just light it and place it near the inlet where the burner is located and I get a good 4-6 hours of constant smoke. Hope this helps

 

[SonnyE]

With you MES30 you could turn on the heat at 100 for a short while to get the draft started, say 15-30 minutes.
Once the smoker is drafting, shut off the heat and the heat from the AMNPS should keep the box drafting.
If you continue to have trouble, you might want to consider putting a stack on it. I just finished mine today and it had no trouble at all staying lit and completely burning all the pellets during my initial test.
Best burn I've gotten. But I did leave my heat on at 100.
Tomorrow I plan to warm it, then shut off the box heat and see how it does with just natural draft.
If you'd like to see how I attached the 3" to the damper I can take some pictures and post them.

Why most smoker don't come with a stack, or a stack option, is beyond me. It gets the smoke up and away from you and the control.

 

[tallbm]

I am thinking of cold smoking some cheese. I have a MES30 and will use the AMNPS in a mailbox mod.
Will the AMNPS with dust stay lit without the MES being on? Is there some kind of draft needed?
I though someone on this forum had trouble with pellets staying lit without the MES being on.

Thanks

I think the issue is that you have little to no draft with a cold smoke so airflow gets funny.
You will also likely run into the issue or stale or bad or strong bitter smoke flavor. I am pretty sure this is caused by stale smoke due to the lack of airflow and draft.

I made a cold smoker assist device from a computer fan, an old 12v plug I spliced into the fan, some cardboard and duct tape. You can see it here:
https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/another-mes-mod-cold-smoker-assist.270750/

It really has helped in my cold smoking attempts. I noticed great difference in taste as well as flow.

Let me know if this makes sense.

 

[gmc2003]

I am thinking of cold smoking some cheese. I have a MES30 and will use the AMNPS in a mailbox mod.
Will the AMNPS with dust stay lit without the MES being on? Is there some kind of draft needed?
I though someone on this forum had trouble with pellets staying lit without the MES being on.

Thanks

Sorry I can't speak much to the staying lit part, but I know that using dust will give you a cleaner smoke then pellets. You may want to adjust your times if you want more color and a heavier smoke flavor on your cheese.

Chris

 

[SmokinAl]

I would just use a regular window fan blowing lightly on the mailbox.
This will push the smoke thru the smoker.
Al

 

[johnmeyer]

I have used the AMNPS with Todd's dust and my mailbox mod and had no problem with it staying lit. I heated the MES for about 2-3 minutes, just to get it a few degrees above ambient. I think that heating it any longer would get it out of the "cold smoke" temperature range.

If you do a lot of smoking, you should look into some of the fan assist ideas presented above. I think they would be a really good idea.

 

[SonnyE]

I did some low temperature testing today.
After kiln drying my chips in my MES 30 overnight, I shut off the heat and got it started with my mod and it kept right on smoking as long as there were chips to burn.
Then I smoked some meat a little to flavor it.
My MES 30 was running 70-90 degrees. So I think it will do cheese for me.
Wish I had a block. I'd do an over-nighter. When we get a 5 pound block, I abscond with a couple of chunks to feed the smoker.
Just don't try to vacuum seal a bag of grated smoked cheese. Squishes it into a strange lump. :confused: