I Need help getting my electric smoker to produce more smoke

[bradger]

as others have said every hour or add more ships into the loader.

 

[SmokinVOLfan]

I place the tray in the lower left corner of my smoker under the water pan. Depending on your model you will have different placements. Pull your chip dumper out in the halfway dump position so you get airflow to the pellets and keep them going. I bought a cheap torch at home depot for $20 and light my pellets with it. Light em up and let it burn for 10 minutes or so get a real nice ember on the end then blow out the flame place it in the smoker and you are in business!

 

[tallbm]

Very interesting, everybody is recommending this. So do I simply load the pellets in this little tray and set it in the smoker? should I just set it on the lowest rack or try to get it by the heating element or what?

Hi there and welcome!

I think you have been given good info on using chips but as you can see all of us MES (Masterbuilt Electric Smoker) owners pretty much use the A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker (AMNPS) tray or tube.

You are running a 30 inch model which is often referred to as an MES30. You may or may not have issues running the AMNPS tray in it, but as others have stated you put it on the bottom rack to the left and have your chip dumper pulled out half way in the dump position and that should allow enough oxygen in for the tray.

The way the tray works is that you fill it. Light one end (or both ends for double smoke) with a porpane torch or heat gun. You let it run a flame for 10 minutes (important) and then you blow out the flame BINGO it produces perfect Thin Blue Smoke (TBS) for up to 12 hours with a full tray, 3 hours from the tube, without any fuss... provided it is getting enough oxygen.

A number of MES30 guys have had issues with the tray in their units so if that happens the alternative is to build what we call a Mailbox Modification (Mod). Where in short you take a mailbox, cut a hole and attach a 3 inch aluminum elbow joint to it. You remove the MES chiploader and connect a 3 inch aluminum duct to the MES and to the elbow joint. You drill a couple of holes into the mailbox door and then you put the AMNPS in there and smoke will funnel into the MES.
You now have smoke generated outside of the MES that you can more easily manage.

Here is a pick of my AMNPS and mailbox mod with my MES40 (40 inch MES). Mine is using a wall hanging mailbox and just goes directly to the MES with the elbow joint. I wanted a compact all in one mailbox mod rather than a bigger multi part one. Notice the AMNPS is light and flaming (flame is hard to see) before I blow it out and put it in the mailbox mod. I hope this info helps! : )

 

[Lonzinomaker]

I did the mailbox mod, works really well for doing cheeses and bacon at lower temps. Never could do that with my stock MES30.

 

[Biggy1]

Howdy folks, I'm a college student and recently began to try my hand at smoking. I've been lurking here for a couple months to learn some stuff and finally created an account to join the fun, so I hope I'm doing this right.

I bought a Masterbuilt 130B Digital Electric Smoker. I know, I know, it's not true smoking, but it's the best this college kid can do for now. When I fire it up, it produces a good amount of smoke for about 2 hours, and then it just stops producing smoke. I've used apple, hickory, and mesquite wood chips, all go the same. I always keep a pan of water, or the brine in their with the meat. Could that be preventing it from creating smoke and if so, how do I find that balance so it will smoke by taking out the pan without drying out the meat?

Any tips and suggestions are welcome!

I have the Masterbuilt Smoker Kit and smoke with chips or pellets 6 to 8 hrs.