First time smoker

[wolf man]

Hello,

I just joined this forum a few minutes ago and haven't done any sort of smoking other than pre seasoning my smoker that I just recently bought. I got the electric thirty inch masterbuilt digital smoker and I was wondering if someone could give me a few pointers on a couple things.

First off I want to try and smoke chicken wings tonight and I found what I hope to be a good recipe but it doesn't say anything about adding any water or anything to the water pan inside the smoker. So my question is if this something you always just do when smoking or only when its going to be long periods of smoking meat like briskets and stuff?

My second question is do you always soak your wood chips in water before using them? And if so for how long?

And lastly how many times do you add wood chips in say an hour or so long smoke? The directions for the smoker say to look inside the chip feeder hole to see if the previous load has burned down all the way than you can add more. Can you over do it and add to much chips and over smoke your food?

If anyone could give me some advice on this stuff I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

 

[gearjammer]

Hey Wolfie, welcome to you.

I think most of the folks on here probably don't put water

in the pan.

Most would put sand in it, then covering with aluminum foil.

The same with the wood chips, no soaking.

Now all that being said, I don't know all that much about the MES.

If someone that actually knows what they're talking about doesn't see this soon

jump right out into the forums and ask out there.

You will get answers.

Enjoy.

          Ed

 

[wolf man]

Thank you Ed!

 

[smell smoke]

Welcome to the group. I have the MES 40 and never soak the wood chips. I've gone to a pellet tray and use pellets on long smokes. But when I do use the wood chips I do a handful every 45 minutes. I foil the trays at the bottom, helps cleanup. I never use water.

 Look for the forum in here for MES users, very helpful.