Your original post sounds exactly like what I posted a few months ago (
"the main problem is that the smoke taste is bitter and numbing"). Click on this link to go there:
Thinking of selling my MES 30
I didn't sell it, and while I think there are smokers that would produce a more pleasing end product, most of them don't offer the convenience and simplicity for a novice like me, so I'm still trying to get great results with what I've got.
You can read that thread to see what people suggested. Our two threads are virtually identical and some of the people who posted back then might not re-visit the same topic now.
Here are several things I have done which seem to have helped a lot.
1.
AMNPS. This has already been mentioned several times. I bought this very early in my ownership (I got the smoker ten months ago). I didn't initially use it all the time, but I found that when I used it, and did not use any chips in the MES chip tray to supplement the smoke, I got a more pleasing smoke.
2.
Temperature. In the MES, it seems that the lower the temperature, the more of this bitter smoke (creosote) you get. I still smoke salmon at 140-160 (to start with), and do the same with almonds. However, I always finish at 225 or higher and I always get the smoker really hot to begin with (see next item).
3.
Preheat. Always preheat before introducing the food. Also, don't add the smoke until it is completely up to temperature. From what I've read, creosote often forms when smoke hits really cold surfaces. I could be wrong about this, and others can correct me if I am.
4.
Plenty of air. When I switched to using the
AMNPS, I read a lot about people having problems keeping it lit. Indeed, I have once in awhile had it go out. I then created a simple mod consisting of a length of duct with a tin can attached. I drilled holes in the can which provides several times more air into the smoker than you get from those three tiny holes in the chip loader. I don't pretend to understand much about the physics of how smoke attaches to the food, although I sure have read a lot about it in the past year. Most of what I read seems to suggest that you want lots of circulation, and certainly don't want a stale smokey steam bath. You sure as heck never want to close the vent at the top.
5.
Clean. As I'm sure you have found, if you heat up your smoker to its max temp (275 for my MES 30), it will smoke all on its own from the stuff that is attached to the walls that burns off and goes back into the smoker. Since you have created some bad smoke, this is now in your smoker and is going to continue to re-infect your food. The solution? Well, as I'm sure you've found it is next to impossible to clean the smoker down to the bare metal on the walls and I don't think that is needed. However, what I would recommend is that you crank it up to maximum and let it cook, empty, until you no longer see any smoke coming out.
The one thing I have not yet done, and which would probably make the biggest difference, is to put the
AMNPS into a "mailbox mod" with a fairly long hunk of metal duct between the mailbox and the smoker. This should help a lot of the bad parts of the smoke condense on the inside of the duct before it reaches the mailbox. Now that I have an ultrasonic cleaner, which can remove smoke almost instantly, I might even consider putting a metal mesh into the duct to condense out even more smoke.