Finally have time to post on the new MES40 trial run with Jerky. Had an the meat in the fridge thawing out so started the MES to preheat, got the old slicer set up and sliced to ¼ strips.
Ended up with exactly 4 lbs. of meat, mixed up the marinade and into the new tumbler I got from Todd a few weeks ago. The mix started out at exactly 3 cups, ran the tumbler for a total of 40 minutes and the meat soaked up 1 whole cup.
While in the tumbler I made sure the new MES was set up with multiple probes since I wanted to check the cabinet temps on the first run. Here is the Jerky in the new smoker. I decided to try to hang the Jerky this time which left plenty of room to set up the temp probes. Here you can see the ET732 probe on the top shelf over by the vent on the left side.
Here you can see the ET732 probe on the bottom shelf and the one hanging in the back I put by the built in sensor of the MES. The one just below the hanging meat is the built in MES meat probe.
Started out with the MES set at 100 deg for the 1[sup]st[/sup] hour then put in the AMNPS with both outside rows lit, this gave around 3 ½ hours of smoke with Pitmasters dust. Every hour I bumped up the temps 10 deg with the final with final setting at 150 deg. After 6 hours I put the jerky in the dehydrator to finish up. Below are a couple of pics of the finished Jerky. I always wanted to weigh the before and after and remembered to do it this time, Started out with 4 lbs meat before marinade and ended up with 1.6 pounds finished.
To make a long story short I ended up ordering a new MES40 from Sam's. Did the seasoning last Friday then the Jerky on Saturday. I have been using a older model MES30 for years and was hoping the new model would be more consistent in holding temps. I kept a log in a spreadsheet as I have with most smokes and inserted it below.
I will let you draw your own conclusions from the sheet below but at lower temps like this I would have been baby sitting the old model the whole time. This smoke because I wanted to see how the new MES worked I made the set-point changes then went back in the house and watched the remotes and recorded. One thing I seen right away the probe on the top shelf was close to the vent which was always a problem spot on the older models, in this smoke the top probe is never the highest reading.
Thanks for checking it out, hope to smoke something this weekend at higher temps to see how it performs, will log on the same sheet and post.
Gary
Ended up with exactly 4 lbs. of meat, mixed up the marinade and into the new tumbler I got from Todd a few weeks ago. The mix started out at exactly 3 cups, ran the tumbler for a total of 40 minutes and the meat soaked up 1 whole cup.
While in the tumbler I made sure the new MES was set up with multiple probes since I wanted to check the cabinet temps on the first run. Here is the Jerky in the new smoker. I decided to try to hang the Jerky this time which left plenty of room to set up the temp probes. Here you can see the ET732 probe on the top shelf over by the vent on the left side.
Here you can see the ET732 probe on the bottom shelf and the one hanging in the back I put by the built in sensor of the MES. The one just below the hanging meat is the built in MES meat probe.
Started out with the MES set at 100 deg for the 1[sup]st[/sup] hour then put in the AMNPS with both outside rows lit, this gave around 3 ½ hours of smoke with Pitmasters dust. Every hour I bumped up the temps 10 deg with the final with final setting at 150 deg. After 6 hours I put the jerky in the dehydrator to finish up. Below are a couple of pics of the finished Jerky. I always wanted to weigh the before and after and remembered to do it this time, Started out with 4 lbs meat before marinade and ended up with 1.6 pounds finished.
To make a long story short I ended up ordering a new MES40 from Sam's. Did the seasoning last Friday then the Jerky on Saturday. I have been using a older model MES30 for years and was hoping the new model would be more consistent in holding temps. I kept a log in a spreadsheet as I have with most smokes and inserted it below.
I will let you draw your own conclusions from the sheet below but at lower temps like this I would have been baby sitting the old model the whole time. This smoke because I wanted to see how the new MES worked I made the set-point changes then went back in the house and watched the remotes and recorded. One thing I seen right away the probe on the top shelf was close to the vent which was always a problem spot on the older models, in this smoke the top probe is never the highest reading.
Thanks for checking it out, hope to smoke something this weekend at higher temps to see how it performs, will log on the same sheet and post.
Gary
