How Many Mes Owners Here?

[ty2185]

 
I hope you ordered the AMNS, not the AMPS, because the AMPS is for pellets.

I ordered The AMNPS 5x8 burns BBQ Pellets or Sawdust.

 

[daricksta]

 
Thanks for your input. I did run out and bought a digital meat probe its a Taylor I checked it in boiling water and it is accurate. All I could find in a hurry at Walmart didn't want to over cook my tip roast. I will order me a maverick from Amazon if they have them.

Keep on smoking!

Last year I used a Food Network therm with a single probe that is made by Taylor--identical to their own model except for the name plate. Anyway, I cooked a ribeye roast in the oven using the FN probe. My plan was to took it to 135° for medium rare. The FN/Taylor showed 125° but when I inserted my CDN thermocouple instant read therm it read 135°.  I let it cook a bit longer to get the carryover temp up to 145. Had I continued to use the FN/Taylor that expensive roast--which turned out to be the best ribeye roast I've ever made--would have been overdone. Next time I'm using my Maverick ET-733 to monitor both the food and the oven ambient temp.

 

[bmaddox]

 
Next time, I would probably try bumping up the temp and wrapping it in foil to finish it. There's always next time!

That is my go to method every time. Once it reaches 165 degrees I wrap it in two layers of heavy duty foil, put it back in the smoker (with no smoke of course), and bump the heat to 250. Once it reaches between 200 and 205 it practically pulls itself.

 

[swedefishmn]

Just got my 30" electric from Cabelas as a present to me from Santa. Haven't fired it up yet, need to finish some outdoor wiring, but I plan to in the next few weeks!

 

[daricksta]

I bought a heavy 25' extension cord and it works fine so far. But it's cold outside. I'll see how it does this summer. I live in an older house and I'm very limited on outside outlets.

I'm fortunate to have two outside outlets on my house, which is about 14 years old and didn't come with the best in electrical wiring. For the front one I need to use an extension cord. I also bought a 25' cord but forget how many amps it's rated but I checked with MB and it's fine. My MES 30 Gen 1 works absolutely the same way whether plugged in directly to the outlet or to the extension cord.

Can't say how it works for cold weather because I only smoke in warm weather.

 

[gary s]

Here is a chart that will help on length for extension cords

Refer to the chart below for minimum wire gauge recommendations for different devices and cord lengths.
 

 
[h2]  [/h2]
Gary

 

[bigtimtx]

I picked up my third 40" MES at Academy's 'Black Friday Sale' for $199.00! 

 

[brewster]

My new MES 30 2nd gen model #20071514 arrived at my house on Wednesday.  Purchased through Lowe's Canada for $249.00 CDN ($209 US).  Funny enough, my new AMNPS 5X8 arrived at the exact same time!! coincidence?  obviously not!!

Last night was spent putting the MES together.  After trying to fit the AMNPS in the MES, I have concluded that it has to sit on the bottom shelf.  It does not fit in the bottom left hand corner as the pictures on this site show in the 1st gen.

Other than to season the smoker, I don't see myself using the chip loader very much except for shorter smokes like chicken thighs and wings.

Pellets are hard to find up here on the west coast of Canada, so thankfully I got a starter bag of pitmster choice with the AMNPS which sadly won't last very long.  To ship a 5lb bag of pellets from A-maze-n is $50

.  Well my local bbq shop sells Traeger, but Todd said they aren't the best, so my only other choice for now is what I have gone with which is the Louisiana Grills competition blend which is 50% Maple. 25% Hickory. 25% Cherry. *crosses fingers*

So Saturday will be season the smoker in the am, and I am thinking something easy my first time smoking which might be Jeff's smoked bacon wrapped chicken thighs. http://www.smoking-meat.com/april-3-2014-smoked-bacon-wrapped-chicken-thighs

I'm so excited to try smoking for the first time, and I thank everyone here for all of the amazing information you all share.

Wish me luck!!

 

[Bearcarver]

 
My new MES 30 2nd gen model #20071514 arrived at my house on Wednesday.  Purchased through Lowe's Canada for $249.00 CDN ($209 US).  Funny enough, my new AMNPS 5X8 arrived at the exact same time!! coincidence?  obviously not!!

Last night was spent putting the MES together.  After trying to fit the AMNPS in the MES, I have concluded that it has to sit on the bottom shelf.  It does not fit in the bottom left hand corner as the pictures on this site show in the 1st gen.

Other than to season the smoker, I don't see myself using the chip loader very much except for shorter smokes like chicken thighs and wings.

Pellets are hard to find up here on the west coast of Canada, so thankfully I got a starter bag of pitmster choice with the AMNPS which sadly won't last very long.  To ship a 5lb bag of pellets from A-maze-n is $50

.  Well my local bbq shop sells Traeger, but Todd said they aren't the best, so my only other choice for now is what I have gone with which is the Louisiana Grills competition blend which is 50% Maple. 25% Hickory. 25% Cherry. *crosses fingers*

So Saturday will be season the smoker in the am, and I am thinking something easy my first time smoking which might be Jeff's smoked bacon wrapped chicken thighs. http://www.smoking-meat.com/april-3-2014-smoked-bacon-wrapped-chicken-thighs

I'm so excited to try smoking for the first time, and I thank everyone here for all of the amazing information you all share.

Wish me luck!!

I think you will find that the best place for your AMNPS in your en #2 will be:

Remove your water pan from the hole in the slanted drip plate.

Put the AMNPS straddling the hole left by the water pan.

Put a throw-away foil pan on the floor under the water pan hole to catch any drips from the drip plate.

Put something above the AMNPS to keep drippings from landing on or in it.

Bear

 

[brewster]

Bear, Todd said the same thing as you when I asked him privately on where to place the new AMNPS.  The problem I have is my model has the sloping drip pan which is also the holder for the water container.  The AMNPS does not fit on top of that sloping drip tray with the bottom rack in place. 

bbq1.jpg

• brewster
• Jan 16, 2015

bbq2.jpg

• brewster
• Jan 16, 2015

bbq3.jpg

• brewster
• Jan 16, 2015

 

[Bearcarver]

 
Bear, Todd said the same thing as you when I asked him privately on where to place the new AMNPS.  The problem I have is my model has the sloping drip pan which is also the holder for the water container.  The AMNPS does not fit on top of that sloping drip tray with the bottom rack in place. 

bbq2.jpg

• brewster
• Jan 16, 2015

In that case, I would go with this pictured method, because you might get more air flow with the water pan not blocking the hole.

Plus I would put that water pan away & use a throw-away foil pan. It's shorter & might allow more air flow & you don't have to clean it. Just use it a few times & chuck it.

Bear

 

[brewster]

Thanks so much, I'm going to give this a go and see how it works.

 

[daricksta]

 
In that case, I would go with this pictured method, because you might get more air flow with the water pan not blocking the hole.

Plus I would put that water pan away & use a throw-away foil pan. It's shorter & might allow more air flow & you don't have to clean it. Just use it a few times & chuck it.

Bear

So, you favor tossing the MES water pan completely? I read over a year ago in this forum where someone recommended keeping it in there because it was part of the MES design. That made sense but is it true? The thing is so large and has to obstruct airflow and pellet smoke in my opinion. Don't know if MB Techguy would agree. But now you've made me decide to leave it outside my MES and to go with a smaller throw-away foil pan. I just use the foiled over water pan as a drip catcher anyway.

 

[Bearcarver]

 
So, you favor tossing the MES water pan completely? I read over a year ago in this forum where someone recommended keeping it in there because it was part of the MES design. That made sense but is it true? The thing is so large and has to obstruct airflow and pellet smoke in my opinion. Don't know if MB Techguy would agree. But now you've made me decide to leave it outside my MES and to go with a smaller throw-away foil pan. I just use the foiled over water pan as a drip catcher anyway.

I was the one who said to leave the pan in, because the MES GEN #1 was designed with it in. The air flow was calculated with that pan in.

Now we're talking about the Gen #2----Whole different animal !!! You need to remove it to get the AMNPS to work better.

And I didn't say toss it----I said put it away.

Bear

 

[daricksta]

 
Here is a chart that will help on length for extension cords

Refer to the chart below for minimum wire gauge recommendations for different devices and cord lengths.
 

 
[h2]  [/h2]
Gary

Thanks, Gary! This is incredible. Just saved it to my hard drive for future reference since I don't know any of this stuff.

 

[daricksta]

 
I was the one who said to leave the pan in, because the MES GEN #1 was designed with it in. The air flow was calculated with that pan in.

Now we're talking about the Gen #2----Whole different animal !!! You need to remove it to get the AMNPS to work better.

And I didn't say toss it----I said put it away.

Bear

I thought it might've been you but didn't want to credit you if you didn't want it.

Toss it--put it away...semantics! I wrote "toss" but I meant "put it away" because that's the picture I had in my mind. I'll be teaching a class in how to understand daRickstaese. Shall I sign you up, Bear?

Also, I didn't scroll back far enough to see you were specifically talking about Gen 2 models. As you know, I love my Gen 1.

 

[Bearcarver]

 
I thought it might've been you but didn't want to credit you if you didn't want it.

Toss it--put it away...semantics! I wrote "toss" but I meant "put it away" because that's the picture I had in my mind. I'll be teaching a class in how to understand daRickstaese. Shall I sign you up, Bear?

Also, I didn't scroll back far enough to see you were specifically talking about Gen 2 models. As you know, I love my Gen 1.

Sign me up!!!

Seriously though----Removing a big pan from a well designed unit like the MES Gen #1 could be a problem.

However removing a small pan from a poorly designed Gen #2 unit can be a good thing, especially if it will help the AMNPS to work properly.

Bear

 

[2cansam]

I have a MES 30.  What extension cord power AMP rating would I need for a 25' & 50' cord?

 

[oldmisterbill]

  I use a 10 Gauge cord for mine - it will probably be ok with 12 gauge ,but I prefer a good clean current with as little voltage drop as possible. My $0.02

 

[Rafter H BBQ]

Just recently joined the MES 30 gen 1 fam for doing bacon, sausage, etc !