Greetings and Can I Get Some Suggestions

[finsorfeathers]

Hello Everyone, Paul here from Northern California, was great to find this forum  so I am excited to read and learn the secrets to smoking.  Being Italian I grew up with lots of old fashioned Italian values and food, many being smoked meats and fish done my father and grandfather.  I guess I should have taken notes! 

I recently purchased a Masterbuilt electric smoker with all the bells and whistles; timer, meat probe, glass door, adjustable temperature etc..  I enjoy smoking ducks and geese but especially salmon.  If any of you ever purchase smoked salmon at the grocery store you know what outrageous prices are out there.  After a few goes at it, I am still not satisfied with the results.  As a kid I remember my father having one of those small electric Luhr Jensen Little Chief smokers and the salmon always came out perfect, low temperature with lots of pans of chips over a period of about 12 hours.  I grew up in Washington state so the salmon was readily available and cheap, fortunately we knew where to fish! 

So my problem is this. In order to get the chips hot enough to start burning/smokng, I have to set the temperature to at least 215 degrees, and knowing that I want to run at least 5 pans of chips, thats quite a long time at a high temperature, to make a long story short the salmon is cooked instead of cured/smoked.  It's very dry and nowhere near what I used to make.  Do I need to put a pan of water in the smoker?  Soak the chips?  Salmon is rather expensive out here so I am kind of limited on doing too many experiments

with it.  I tried setting the heat high til the chips began smoking then turned the heat down to  130 but the chips quit burning.  ANY suggestions are most welcome and I think maybe I should have purchased another Little Chief, this is one instance where I didn't get what I paid for and good things do come in small packages!

Thanks and I am really enjoying all the info/recipes on here!   

Happy Smoking!  Paul

PS tried smoking a Prime Rib and it came out awful, tasted like I was eating a cigarette lol... I threw it out in the orchard for the coyotes, they enjoyed it!

 

[red dog]

Hello and welcome to the forum. There was a problem with some of the MES smokers with the chip tray. It was small and far enough from the element that chips wouldn't smoke at low temps. There is a retrofit larger chip tray available from Masterbuilt that solves the problem. There is however another solution. Todd Johnson who is a member of the forum makes a product called the A-Maze-N-Pellet smoker. It burns flavored pellets, you light it and put in your smoker to generate smoke. You can then turn your heat down as low as you want, even cold smoke.Lots of people on here have them(including me) and they work great. I am using one as I type in my MES. Look on the right hand side of this page for a link to his site. A-Maze-N Products.

 

[s2k9k]

As Red Dog said, the A-maze-n pellet smoke is the way to go in the MES, you can get 10+ hours of perfect smoke with one load of his 100% pure wood pellets and his customer service can't be beat! http://www.amazenproducts.com/

And if you don't believe us here is some good reading for you: http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/search.php?search=amnps+mes

I see this is your first post here, when you get a minute would you do us a favor and go to Roll Call and introduce yourself so we can get to know you and give you a proper welcome, also would you add your location to your profile, we like knowing where you are when we talk to you, Thanks!

 

[finsorfeathers]

Thanks Red Dog and S2K9K, I will look into both suggestions as that sounds like exactly what I need to fix the situation.  I updated myself in Roll Call also.

Red Dog, where abouts in Oregon are you?  I took a trip up the Oregon Coast to the Sea Lion caves last month, had a great time and nice weather, was a nice change from the heat we get here in the summer.  Do you bird hunt at all?  Great looking dog.   I hit the refuges in the Sacramento Valley, the poor man's duck club lol....

Paul

 

[red dog]

Hi Paul

Right now I'm in Central Oregon south of Bend, transplanted from Northwest Oregon up on the Columbia river. No bird hunting here, just partial to Lab Golden crosses. She is a great dog. I was born in Ukiah CA and lived in Antioch when I was a kid. My Dad and Grandad hunted birds in the rice patties down in the Sacramento area. Where are you at in CA?

 

[rabbithutch]

Howdy, Paul!

Add me to the list of AMNPS zealots. My first couple of smokes with the MES40 were a pain due to the problem of not being able to keep smoke going. After buying and using the AMNPS, I can say unequivocally that it is THE ANSWER to smoke. MasterBuilt failed with the chip burner. I don't know if they fixed it in the new models, but it was a 'fail' in the one I have.

I'm no expert at it, but I have smoked salmon in my unit. It was not the wild salmon you can get in the NW but it was a tasty treat for us.

:welcome1: to SMF!

 

[finsorfeathers]

Hi Rabbit Hutch and thanks for the welcome. 

Like a kid in a candy store, I went to the A-Maze-N website and ordered a "few" dollars of products including the tube, dust and pellets.  Looking at that tube, it really resembles the filters we use in our orchard irrigation system but those are extremely expensive so I probably shouldn't modify them to use in the smoker.   I read a few of the comments at AMNPS and it was good to see others had the same problem as I did and that someone had the idea to solve the problem.  My Masterbuilt is only a few months old so I am guessing or at least hoping they recitfied the problem by now, it's a great smoker otherwise, I can tell you it cooks food really well!  Too well if you know what I mean!  I "attempted" to smoke a prime rib and it was just terrible.  Kind of difficult to experiment on meat that costly, I regretted giving it to the wild animals but I figured they can deal with a stomach ache better than I could. 

Red Dog I live a bit west of Angels Camp near Lake Camanche.  I grew up in Concord before I moved here.  I used to live up in the Bremerton Washington area too, seems we were in the same neighborhoods lol...  My cousin and his wife were big Golden Retriever folks whereas I was the Black Lab fan, nothing more loyal than a Lab :-)

Hope you are both having good weekends, 108 degrees here today so I am a shut in for a bit!

Paul

 

[red dog]

Small world Paul. My mom lived in Angels Camp when she was a girl and we used to camp up there when I was a youngster. I still have family in Sonora. If you want to try some iteresting smoking wood cut some very small chunks of manzanita. Has to be pretty small to work in the MES. About 1 inch long by 1/2 to 3/4 diameter. Has a very mild flavor and burns slow. Load 3 or 4 chunks at a time.

 

[scarbelly]

If you are smoking in an MES you want to change your order.  The tube is not going to be your best solution for an MES.  You want the AMNPS  - call Todd on Monday and he can adjust for you 

 

[red dog]

If you are smoking in an MES you want to change your order.  The tube is not going to be your best solution for an MES.  You want the AMNPS  - call Todd on Monday and he can adjust for you 

 +1 on this. the AMNPS is best in MES according to Todd. Shoot him off a email or something, he ships real quick.

 

[finsorfeathers]

Thanks for the info and suggestions guys, I actually ordered both the tube and the  AMNPS, I was curious about both, so now I have a Bday gift for a friend who is also into smoking, how convenient is that? 

Yes Red Dog, very small world, so you know this area pretty well.  I will try and look for the Manzanita, I do know it's all over up in Oregon, should have grabbed a few branches! 

I was just curious, I wonder if anyone has used pistachio wood to smoke with?  I guess I can experiment with it, God knows I have a big burn pile of trimmings!

 

[moikel]

I am sure pistachio gets used around the Mediterranean in wood fired ovens, alla brace (over charcoal in Italian dialect here) same as vine cuttings or olive prunings. Maybe a little baby goat/pig over charcoal if that floats your boat.

 

[red dog]

Thanks for the info and suggestions guys, I actually ordered both the tube and the  AMNPS, I was curious about both, so now I have a Bday gift for a friend who is also into smoking, how convenient is that? 

Yes Red Dog, very small world, so you know this area pretty well.  I will try and look for the Manzanita, I do know it's all over up in Oregon, should have grabbed a few branches! 

I was just curious, I wonder if anyone has used pistachio wood to smoke with?  I guess I can experiment with it, God knows I have a big burn pile of trimmings!

 There is lots of manzanita in Cal too Paul. My Uncle brings it to me from the Clearlake area. There is a rare species in Calaveras County that ls federaly protected so don't get caught cutting it on public land.I have also gotten it from a guy in Redding. We do have some of it around here but it's much smaller than the Cal variety. More like sagebrush. One thing I like about it is it has very few natural toxins and carcinogens. That's why they use it for perches in bird cages.

 

[finsorfeathers]

Thanks for the info Moikel, maybe I'll practice on a chicken or ribs first :-)  Red Dog now that mentione it, my dad has property in Clear Lake and I remember that Manzanita being everywhere,  I'll have to keep a lookout for the protected species here, probably in the areas next to all the lakes we have around here, but I promise not to cut it down!