HELPS. MES 30 wouldnt get to TEMP.

[hylndr]

Ive been working with this thing for awhile now and pretty much love it, making some great food between this and my weber gas. I was doing about 150 wings for a party at my house and this time it would not get over 190. I dont know if it was too many wings or what was going on - here are some details FYI newest MES 30 BT.

I had all 4 racks full - and the bottom one was just above the water pan I believe which I had used before to catch stuff - everything Ive done Ive learned from here. I wonder if that was it. I have MAV and the Thermopro TP 20. Love them, they are a huge help but I was very pissed because I was doing a version of Scarbellys wings and was going to crisp them on the grill but could never get the unit to get above 200.

ANY IDEAS? I dont think my unit is doing anything wrong, I did also use a different ext cord but that was my first idea as to why it wasnt gettting hot so I plugged direct pretty soon on.

It did get hot when I pre heated to get to temp and get the AMNPS going but once put the food in. 190 was tops.

THANKS EVERYONE.

PS. JUST WANT TO THANK THIS FORUM - I am becoming a "famous" chef because of what I have learned here : ) lol

 

[mike243]

Any load will drop the temps,loaded racks will take a long time to come up to the set point on a electric unit,the food acts as a heat sink,if it was a stick burner or gas another split or turn the gas up would help it recover quicker for sure,

 

[Smkryng]

Ive been working with this thing for awhile now and pretty much love it, making some great food between this and my weber gas. I was doing about 150 wings for a party at my house and this time it would not get over 190. I dont know if it was too many wings or what was going on - here are some details FYI newest MES 30 BT.

I had all 4 racks full - and the bottom one was just above the water pan I believe which I had used before to catch stuff - everything Ive done Ive learned from here. I wonder if that was it. I have MAV and the Thermopro TP 20. Love them, they are a huge help but I was very pissed because I was doing a version of Scarbellys wings and was going to crisp them on the grill but could never get the unit to get above 200.

ANY IDEAS? I dont think my unit is doing anything wrong, I did also use a different ext cord but that was my first idea as to why it wasnt gettting hot so I plugged direct pretty soon on.

It did get hot when I pre heated to get to temp and get the AMNPS going but once put the food in. 190 was tops.

THANKS EVERYONE.

PS. JUST WANT TO THANK THIS FORUM - I am becoming a "famous" chef because of what I have learned here : ) lol

Do you happen to know how many pounds of wings you had?

 

[dwdunlap]

I had the same problem with my MES30 gen 2.5 - Twice!! Both times it turned out to be a failed MES controller. That's my history. This last time I decided to not replace with another MES and instead bought a real PID controller. So now, well into a month of many smokes and many test runs, I sing the praises of the PID! I set the temp I want and it stays there! If your controller is the problem, I hope this helps.

David

 

[Smkryng]

I was kinda thinking it was a controller problem also. I would think that even with 4 trays of wings it probably wouldn’t weigh as much as 20+ pounds of pork shoulder and my MES recovers fairly quick even with that in it

 

[tiros]

I just had similar problem with my MES 40. It turned out to be the high temperature limit snap disk. One of the rivets that hold the spade lugs on was loose. It was discolored dark. At temp the connection became intermittent. I used a hole saw to cut my back cover open to replace it.

 

[hylndr]

Do you happen to know how many pounds of wings you had?

about 15 lbs

 

[hylndr]

Id be surprised well maybe not if it was the controller, Ive only used it about 10x now, but .....

you should have access panels Tiros I would think in that 40.

Thanks for the replies so far, Im about to start it up again empty and see what happens.

 

[tiros]

Well I wouldn't have used a saw if there was an access panel ;)
The element has a panel, I would a hook up a volt meter to the element and watch what happens.
You might not even have too if you see cooked connectors on the element.

 

[tallbm]

Ive been working with this thing for awhile now and pretty much love it, making some great food between this and my weber gas. I was doing about 150 wings for a party at my house and this time it would not get over 190. I dont know if it was too many wings or what was going on - here are some details FYI newest MES 30 BT.

I had all 4 racks full - and the bottom one was just above the water pan I believe which I had used before to catch stuff - everything Ive done Ive learned from here. I wonder if that was it. I have MAV and the Thermopro TP 20. Love them, they are a huge help but I was very pissed because I was doing a version of Scarbellys wings and was going to crisp them on the grill but could never get the unit to get above 200.

ANY IDEAS? I dont think my unit is doing anything wrong, I did also use a different ext cord but that was my first idea as to why it wasnt gettting hot so I plugged direct pretty soon on.

It did get hot when I pre heated to get to temp and get the AMNPS going but once put the food in. 190 was tops.

THANKS EVERYONE.

PS. JUST WANT TO THANK THIS FORUM - I am becoming a "famous" chef because of what I have learned here : ) lol

Hi there and welcome!

I have run into a similar issue. I think there were a few contributing factors to your situation:

1. That is quite loaded down for an MES to use up most of all 4 racks, so it is just hard for it to build the heat up
2. Chicken seems to be the most "liquidy" of all the meats and I notice my MES brings temp up the slowest with chicken
3. Chicken seems to drip and steam more than other meats I smoke. I believe all that extra moisture cool things down as it drips and steams moisture all over the inside.


The things I do to mitigate these chicken related problems is to:

1. not over load more than 2 racks in my MES with chicken
2. Bring the smoker up to the highest possible temp and work as fast as humanly possible to load the chicken into the smoker to get minimal temp drop
3. I close the smoker vent down as closed as I can to help keep heat in and build up the temp as fast as possible! My probe wires still leave a small gap but even still doing this helps keep heat from leaving. Also Don't worry about stale smoke building up as smoke still leaves in those tiny vent gaps. Additionally these wing cooks go so fast that I don't think you can get enough stale smoke on the wings long enough to be an issue.

I have done quite a bit of chicken in my MES and even with all my mods (which are many), a PID controller, and taking my MES up to 325F for chicken (due to mods) I still encounter the same type of issues you do with too much chicken in the MES. you just gotta know the quirks of the meat/cook and you can work around them!

I hope this helps :)

 

[TomKnollRFV]

I've had an issue of liquid building up in my MES before and entirely stalling out the cooking. Could also be a culprit!

I'd do a dry run on it; just see if it can normally held temps or not. I don't know what you set the temp at either; if it was at 225f, and reading 190f..that was very likely just so much in there to heat up, and moisture building up and stalling the temps etc I'd think.