Cleaning up your act - clean smoke is delicious smoke!

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setesh

Fire Starter
Original poster
Feb 28, 2016
48
35
I was ready to put my 30” analog MasterBuilt Electric Smoker (MES) on the curb for big trash day.  I couldn’t get good amounts of smoke unless I was cooking over 250 degrees, and then the smoke I got was harsh and made my food taste like a fireplace.  I got on the forums and read about tray type smoke generators.  They allow you to remove the chips that are dependent on the element for heat and use pellets or dust that slowly smolders.  This seemed like a great fix, so I picked one up.  I couldn’t get it to stay lit, and the pellets would swell up from all the moisture in the MES.  Not a fix after all I thought.  But since it was winter I wanted to try it for cold smoking and see how that worked.  I put some cheese on the top two racks of the smoker and put the generator in the bottom on top of the element.  The smoker was unplugged just to make sure no accidents happened.  I let the cheese smoke for one hour.  Here is what greeted me when I opened the door


I took out the cheese and good grief was it disgusting!  It tasted extremely bitter and made my tongue tingle.  This is like sucking on a charcoal briquette...who in their right mind wanted to eat this stuff?!?  I know you're supposed to let it age, but how do you age flavor this bad out of something as lightly flavored as cheese?

Back to the forums I went.  The 30” analog MES very little ventilation.  There is a small hole in the top right back corner of the body, and a small hole in the middle of the bottom that is designed to allow grease to flow into a catch pan.  Here you can see the top hole:


The door also seals rather loosely, and provides for some airflow, but it isn’t enough.  You can see the smoke seeping out and the creosote left from smoke on the door:


The higher model MES all have a chip loading tray and a real vent at the top that you can adjust to provide good airflow.  This lack of airflow seemed to be a likely cause of my problems, so I cut a 3” hole into the top of the MES and a 3” hole right above the chip pan.  Now I was able to keep the smoke generator lit on hot cooks and the flavor was much better than what I was getting with the MES chip pan.  I added a chimney to help it draft and tried cooking some chicken and a pork loin.  Both turned out pretty good!  I was happy with the improvement, so I tried to cold smoke some more cheese.  This time I put only a small amount of cheese in and tested it at 30 minutes instead of an hour.  NOPE!  That bitter taste was still there, it wasn't as bad as before, but it had only been 30 minutes.  Now I was getting really frustrated!  Back to the forums again. 

I found the mailbox mod which was supposed to help with cold smoking and looked promising.  I went and bought a mailbox, an 8 foot section of rigid aluminum flex duct, and two universal 90s.  I put it all together and gave it another shot with some more cheese.  This was noticeably better, but it still had that bitter taste and I thought that it might be the quality of the smoke I was generating.  It looked more white to me than blue.  I posted asking for help with getting thin blue smoke with my MES 30 with the mailbox mod.  Lucky for me Mr T read my post and shared some of his knowledge and experience with me.  He explained how cold smoking is different than hot smoking and you need to cool the smoke to get the nasty stuff like creosote out before it gets to your food.  He had me get a few sections of rigid pipe to lengthen the distance from the mailbox to the smoker.  Here is what it looked like:


After adding 3 sections of pipe, I noticed a huge difference in the smoke flavor on some more test cheese.  Since I still had room for 2 more sections of pipe on the back of the smoker stand I added them.  Now instead of 8 feet of pipe I had 21, almost 3 times the distance of the original mod.  Here is the final product:


Mr T advised me to use powdered pellets for my next cheese attempt, so I blended a bunch of pellets down to a fine powder and loaded that into the smoke generator.  The powder looks like this:


This takes some effort to blend up, but it burns for a long time and makes a lite smoke, which can be very handy depending on the circumstances.  Another great tip from Mr T was to cut the cheese into 1 inch cubes so I could try them at different times.  Smart guy!  I loaded up the top rack with a bunch of 1 inch cubes and loaded the smoke generator filled with powder into the mailbox.  Every 30 minutes I pulled a cube out and tried it.  The difference in the smoke flavor was astounding!  I smoked for 8 straight hours that day, and even though the 8 hour cubes of cheese were more smoky than I personally care for, they had NO bitterness whatsoever!  I was amazed!  Almost everything I had read before said that you had to age smoked cheese to make it edible, but not if you do it this way!  This stuff was delicious right out of the smoker!  After tasting the cheese I went cold smoking crazy and tried nuts, goldfish crackers, cheesits, boiled eggs, salt, pepper, butter, potatoes, and of course…more cheese.  I cold smoked everything I could get my hands on, and it all came out stellar and was ready to eat right out of the smoker!  I told Mr T how happy I was with the results and thanking him for helping me fix my smoker instead of trashing it.  He suggested I pass along the information to help others, which I was more than happy to do.  So I did some tests.  The tests were designed to show what was happening at each stage of my build, and why the final build works so well.

For the first test I wanted to show how the analog MES30 performed with a smoke generator and no modifications.  In order to do this I simply put tape over the holes I had cut into the MES, removed the tape from the factory holes,  loaded a lit tray full of pellets on the element, and put a ziplock baggie half filled with water on the middle rack.  This test proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the stock analog 30” MES does not have enough airflow.  The pellets burned for 19 hours and 23 minutes!  The extra time is because they didn't get enough airflow.  Here is what the tray looked like:


you can see the black pellet remains.  They didn't burn completely.  And notice that even the ash is covered with creosote?  Here is what the ziplock baggie looked like:


Absolutely disgusting!  No wonder I didn’t like my first attempt at cheese!  The bag is extremely sticky, like sticking your finger in molasses.  This nasty stuff covered everything in my smoker, so I turned it to high and burned it off for an hour.  I have never smelt anything so foul as the junk coming out of the smoker on this burn off!  It was absolutely foul!  After it stopped burning off I let it cool down and moved to the next test.

For the second test I loaded a full tray of pellets into the generator and placed it on the element of the MES, un-taped the ventilation holes I had cut into the MES body, taped up the stock hole, and put a fresh ziplock of water on a clean middle rack.  This time the pellets burned for 12 hours 9 minutes.  That's more like it!

This was a marked improvement over the first test, and should be extremely similar to what any of the higher end model MES users out there should expect.  Actually, this might be a little better, because I had nothing covering the holes at all, just two wide open 3"' holes.  Here is the ziplock it produced:


This is still very tacky, but not as bad as the 'molasses' like substance that covered the first baggie.  This was more like paint that is only a few minutes old and isn’t dry yet.  As soon as your finger touches it you are stuck.  It also smells horrible and acrid, like a camp fire.  Once again I needed to burn off all the junk from the smoker.  Another hour on high did the trick.  It was really gross this time, but not as bad as the first test.  I let it cool down and proceeded to the next test.

For the third test I put a full tray of pellets in the smoke generator and loaded it in the mailbox.  So this time it starting in the mailbox and going through 21 feet of 3” pipe.  This time the generator burned for 9 hours 58 minutes.  Here is the ziplock:


Now we are getting somewhere!  As you can see, the smoke has been cleaned a lot by the long run of piping.  This bag is only very slightly tacky, like paint that is almost completely dry.  If you touch it and immediately move your finger it doesn’t feel tacky at all, but leave your finger there a moment and it tries to stick to you a little bit.  The bag smells like smoke, but it is like the smell of smoke on your clothes after a hot smoke, not acrid like a camp fire .  I turned on the burner for an hour after this test just like I did after previous tests, but almost nothing came out this time. Clean smoke leaves a clean smoker!

For the fourth and fifth tests I used powdered pellets and two ziplock baggies.  Both baggies go in at the beginning of the test, but one gets removed at 9 hours and 58 minutes, the same amount of time that the pellets burned for in the third test.  This shows us the difference in smoke produced by powder vs pellets.  The other baggie goes the distance.  The tray smoke generator is fully loaded with powder and loaded into the mailbox.  The powder burned for 15 hours 36 minutes.  That's 56% longer than the pellets, but at a lower smoke density.  Here is the baggie that went the distance:


And here is the baggie that got pulled at 9 hours 58 minutes, the same time as the pellets lasted:


The baggies confirm that powder gives you a lighter smoke than pellets do for the same amount of time, but it burns longer so you can play with those variables.

Here are the baggies all together, starting with the bottom left and going counter clockwise you have 1[sup]st[/sup]  test- no mods, 2[sup]nd[/sup]  test – ventilation, 3[sup]rd[/sup]  test – mailbox with pellets, 4[sup]th[/sup]  test powder – full 15 hours 36 minutes, 4[sup]th[/sup]  test powder – 9 hours 58 minutes.


Here is another pic that shows the drastic difference between a tray type smoke generator loaded with pellets inside the stock MES vs inside the mailbox mod with 21 feet of pipe:


So, what can we gather from these tests?  The primary result is that, for cold smoking at least, you need to clean your smoke!  Not only do creosote and tar taste and smell bad, they probably aren’t very good for you either.  I know I don’t want to put that stuff in my mouth, much less feed it to my family!  A secondary result is that powder burns slower than pellets, providing less smoke for a longer period of time.  So the decision to use pellets or powder depends on how much smoke you want, and how quickly you want it to be applied.  It also stands to reason that the smaller the volume of smoke, the more it will be cleaned by the system.  Another arrow for your quiver.

I haven’t tested the system on hot smokes yet, but that is something I plan to do as soon as the weather warms up and my window for cold smoking has closed on me.  For now I’m socking up the larder with delicious cold smoked foods!

I hope this helps save someone the trouble and frustration I went through.  I went from being extremely frustrated and ready to toss my MES to turning out AMAZING cold smoked food.  A huge THANK YOU goes out to Mr T for taking the time to walk me through the piping mod.  I'm sure there is more modding in my future, and I'll update you guys with the results of those mods too.  This is a great community here that is happy to share information and I am proud to be a part of it.  The willingness to share experiences and keep an open mind are HUGE advantages of this group, and something you don't find often.  You also went out of your way to make me feel welcome and I really appreciate that.  Good luck to you all, and happy smoking!!!

Edit #1.  I calculated the cost for the mailbox mod as shown above = $54.  The company I work for has an account with a heating and air supply company, so that may be a bit cheaper than a hardware store would be.

Edit #2.  Here is a link to my first thread where I asked for help and began modding my MES:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/243192/cant-get-tbs-while-cold-smoking-with-mes-30-and-amnps
 
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Sure b-one, I'm happy to give back to the forum.  I hope it helps someone out!
 
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Great job using the science experiment to explain what I covered in my post! The bags are quantitative proof of the qualitative taste. Excellent post, great build, thank you for the time you spent on it!
 
Thanks bauchjw.  

BTW, I still have my cheese fail aging in my kegorator.  I call it creosote cheese.  It was the cheese you can barely see in the first picture of this thread.  My wife wanted me to trash it, but I couldn't stand throwing away 6lbs of cheese without giving it a chance.  I cut 1/8" off each side of each block to remove the creosote and vacuum packed it. Time will tell!
 
Haha! At least you could rescue some of your fail! Those creosote days are long gone now though. I'm looking forward to seeing more!
Great job,
Jed
 
Great job man, thanks for all the effort put in to 

do all the experiments.

Also for the time and effort put in to document it 

all in your very informative post.

Keep on smokin'                           Ed
 
Looking forward to see how this works for hot smokes. The mod looks cool as .... Bravo. Any details how you pulverized the pellets. I envision a very PO'd she-beast if I ruinate her kitchen blender trying this.
 
Looking forward to see how this works for hot smokes. The mod looks cool as .... Bravo. Any details how you pulverized the pellets. I envision a very PO'd she-beast if I ruinate her kitchen blender trying this.

I use a 15 dollar coffee grinder from Wal-mart for spices. That would probably do the trick!
 
 
Looking forward to see how this works for hot smokes. The mod looks cool as .... Bravo. Any details how you pulverized the pellets. I envision a very PO'd she-beast if I ruinate her kitchen blender trying this.
Ha!  You aren't kidding!  I am using the 'old' blender that she replaced with a 'Ninja'.  It's called a Hamilton Beach Wave Action.  I just put a couple of handfuls of pellets in and let'r rip.  The 'wave action' on this thing keeps pulling the pellets, then dust, then powder down into the blades.  it takes a while, but it works.
I use a 15 dollar coffee grinder from Wal-mart for spices. That would probably do the trick!
This is exactly what I was thinking would work really well!  Could you post a pic of the powder that it gives you?
 
Great post, Good info, presented well...JJ
points.gif
 
I've only used it for spices, I haven't moved to pellets. I can grind up some peppercorns if you'd like to see it? However, the grinder I got can go really fine. Before it became my spice grinder I would use it for different coffee bean textures depending on how I was brewing. It can get extremely fine!
 
 
Great job man, thanks for all the effort put in to 

do all the experiments.

Also for the time and effort put in to document it 

all in your very informative post.

Keep on smokin'                           Ed
Thank you!  I'm glad you found it helpful!
 
I've only used it for spices, I haven't moved to pellets. I can grind up some peppercorns if you'd like to see it? However, the grinder I got can go really fine. Before it became my spice grinder I would use it for different coffee bean textures depending on how I was brewing. It can get extremely fine!
That's what I use mine for, doing different textures of coffee beans.  One day when I was grinding coffee I thought "hey, this would tear up some pellets!".  I'll pick up another one next time I'm at the store and report back on how it works.  Blending them to powder took about 20-30 minutes for a full tray load.  If you had a blender that was worth a darn it would probably go MUCH faster though.
 
Thank you for a job well done. The information you have taken the time to accumulate these last couple of weeks will now last you through a lifetime of smoking food products. Regardless the equipment used, you can now see how each modification you make, affects the result. Your accomplishments have vaulted you to a very small percentile of smokers who can produce a very clean and smooth smoke at or just above ambient temperature.

 To up the ante even more, a couple more easy and inexpensive mods can be done. For the time being, enjoy what you have, we can work on the other mods later.

I hope that the information you have provided and the following will help others in their smoking ventures. Please follow the additional links in each link.

New to smoking or have a new smoker? -- "How to optimize your smoke"

Mr T
 
That's some impressive results! Took a bit of engineering to get a cold smoke you'll enjoy eating, but as Tom said, you'll have this knowledge for the rest of your life, and no one can take that away from you. Tom knows his stuff with smoke...I've learned a lot from him in the past couple of years myself.

Points for making good of Tom's advice and putting it to use for a great future in cold smoking...and looking ahead towards cleaning up you hot smokes as well!!!

I'll patiently await you updates.

Eric
 
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Thank you for a job well done. The information you have taken the time to accumulate these last couple of weeks will now last you through a lifetime of smoking food products. Regardless the equipment used, you can now see how each modification you make, affects the result. Your accomplishments have vaulted you to a very small percentile of smokers who can produce a very clean and smooth smoke at or just above ambient temperature.

 To up the ante even more, a couple more easy and inexpensive mods can be done. For the time being, enjoy what you have, we can work on the other mods later.

I hope that the information you have provided and the following will help others in their smoking ventures. Please follow the additional links in each link.

New to smoking or have a new smoker? -- "How to optimize your smoke"

Mr T
Thank you for teaching me how to do it!  My family and friends are loving it!
 
That's some impressive results! Took a bit of engineering to get a cold smoke you'll enjoy eating, but as Tom said, you'll have this knowledge for the rest of your life, and no one can take that away from you. Tom knows his stuff with smoke...I've learned a lot from him in the past couple of years myself.

Points for making good of Tom's advice and putting it to use for a great future in cold smoking...and looking ahead towards cleaning up you hot smokes as well!!!

I'll patiently await you updates.

Eric
Thank you Eric!  I enjoy tinkering and building stuff, it is very zen for me. Tom is indeed a wealth of knowledge, and I'm more than happy to learn from his experience instead of learning the hard way!  I'm very interested to test the system on hot smokes and see what the differences are there.  I imagine there will also be tests of the additional mods Tom mentioned.
 
Great job, and a great write up. Points!
Thank you AK1 
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