Major Mes 40 temp issue

[kenzmad22]

last 2 cooks for pork has taken a very long time. 2 pork butts, 9lbs each. Smoker temp set to 225*. Both cooks took in more than 24 hours. First one I chalked up to not being familiar with the new smoker. Todays was 26 hours. Running Maverick and my new inkbird. After taking the meat off, I did the boiling water test. Inkbird 3 probes all read 212,maverick read 214. Pulled the probe from the smoker, ran a pot of boiling water out and it read 108. Pulled meat at 190 as it wont climb past that. How does meat get to 190 if the probe thinks temp is ok at 108? Internal temp with an instant read is 190. HELP!!!!! Is this safe to eat? Graduation party next weekend. Strange thing was, 3 smoker temp monitors as you see in pic. Ran mes up to 270 and the othe two are 214&239.

 

[GaryHibbert]

Evening Ken. First off, NEVER trust the therm on a MES--I've yet to see one that was even close to accurate. Second, when you boil tested the remote therms, did you correct for altitude? Where I live, water boils at 207 degrees. Third, were the probes for the Inkbird and Maverick close together? Different spots in the MES can vary a lot re: temp.
Gary

 

[mosparky]

The probe from the MES is not the one that regulates the temp. It only allows you to monitor the meat temp (never trust it). The Smoker temp is monitored by a small nub in the back, about middle side to side.
Butts can take a long time, especially if you don't wrap it at the stall. Every butt is different. Two the same size can be hours apart on finish time.
Also cooking at near your finish temp does not help the cook time at all but in some cases can make meat more tender. The temp rise of the meat slows as it nears the smoker (ambient) temp. Smoking the butts at 275 leaves plenty of excess BTU's to continue the temp rise of the meat.
I'd say you got the meat to temp according to your verified therms AND you did not inject it, you should be good to go.

 

[kenzmad22]

Thank you for the replies. I have learned to trust the maverick and hopefully now the Inkbird. How do I trust thethe temp differential in pit temps? All probes were within inches of each other, same shelf. Set temp of 270, both maverick and inkbird were different than MES. See pic.

 

[kenzmad22]

Oops

 

[tallbm]

Hi there and welcome!

The guys have been providing great info to follow.
As an MES owner you are about to learn the golden rule of temperature. Don't trust the MES temps, Trust your Inkbird and Maverick temps.

Always have at least 1 temp probe at rack level to measure the smoker temp because you can't trust the MES smoker temp. I run 3 probes at rack level and I know what my hot spot (my back left), my center of the rack, and my cold spot (front right of rack) are all marking.

Next, a pork butt doesn't care what temp you smoke it at so you are probably best suited to smoke it on the bottom most rack (if that is your hottest rack) and crank up the MES to 275F. If you have enough probes and you are doing a smoke try and figure it which rack level is the hottest. I know a guy who has a gen 2 MES30 and the 2nd from the bottom rack is the hottest followed by the 3rd from bottom (2nd from top) is next, and then the bottom most rack after... very weird to me but that is how his smoker operates.

If your MES is really only ever hitting a smoker temp of 239F then I would set the MES at 275F for everything lol.

If you get fed up of the MES not being able to get over 239F then you can always do a simple rewire to it and buy a PID controller and you would have a smoker that is 10x better performing than the MES ever was. Let us know if you ever want to cross that bridge and we'll help you out :)

I hope this info helps and best of luck!