How much can you stuff your mes

[evandostert]

I am pushing the limits on my mes internal size. 2 butts, 2 chickens, 2 briskets a fatty and 2 dozen atb's. I shoulda woulda coulda got the big one. Has anyone had any problems overstuffing the mes.

 

[werdwolf]

I have gone a little lower on my cooking temps and a little longer times when it's really packed. I was noticing less "smokiness". I would guess it's about the circulation inside, not sure though.

 

[fishawn]

You got that much in a 30" MES? Got any pics on how you arranged it all?

 

[bbq bubba]

I hope you got chicken on the bottom.

Its a dream, this never happened!

 

[davenh]

Today I did 9 racks of BB's, 3 per shelf with rib racks, and 2 dz chick drums. Barely all fit in and I did notice a long recovery time to get back up to temp. It was around 35° outside at the start of the smoke. I found the tenderness of the ribs wasn't all that even, some were cooked a little more than others. I would normally keep rotating the racks, but the poor temp recovery loaded made me want to keep the door closed.

I won't be trying to load it up anytime soon, wasn't too thrilled with the results. Mostly the uneven temps while cooking. With half the amount the MES handles it no problem.

I have the 40" MES.

 

[deltadude]

I've done 10 racks of ribs both BB and trimmed short ribs t.Louis style, plus 2 chickens, in my MES.

I had no problem getting the desired doneness. However the outdoor ambient was 80+. I only opened the door when it was time to foil, and discovered I had another 40 to 60 minutes to go to achieve the desired pull-back on the bone tips before foiling.

I always use a full water pan.

I would think that once the MES heats up to the set temp, a fully loaded MES wouldn't take any longer than normal to get back to set temp after the door was opened. All that meat is a giant heat sink that would help with the temperature. If you are not careful and leave the door open too long or open it repeatedly in a short cycle, then there would be a problem with too much heat loss. When opening the door, that should be a careful planned process, to keep the open time to an absolute minimum.
IMHO

 

[pmk]

Is there such a thing as a small fan that would circulate the heat, it would have to take the temps but i bet some one makes one. RV refrigerators have the same problem, and its fixed with a small fan, now by small Im talking about one the size of a silver dollar, it dosn't need to do much at all, just more than nothing...

 

[davenh]

The difference between 35 and 80 is why you don't have trouble

.

I use mine all summer with no problems. Come winter time in NH the temp recovery on the 40" MES sucks if you load it. I put an extra heater in mine, without that I might not even have got back to temp during the first few hours. Thinking about it, I probably didn't help the situation by storing the MES outside. the whole system was chilled to start with

.

I always rotate the shelves when they're all full. The bottom shelf can be 25~30 cooler than the top. I usually swap the top with the bottom and then the two middle ones half way through to even things out. I also like to mop ribs each hour.

This time around, I didn't want to lose heat by opening up the unit. I was an hour and a half late to the party as it was. Everyone loved the food, but I knew it could have been better

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