Masterbuilt 30" Electric Smoker - No Smoke, Chip Tray Height Fix

[SmokeNoobPA]

I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point, my MasterBuilt electric smoker stopped producing smoke at lower temperatures. The last time I smoked something, I didn't notice any smoke until the temperature got close to 200F.

I found a thread on this forum that suggested checking how far off the burner the chip tray was sitting. That turned out to be my problem, but none of the other pictures had a bracket like mine, so I'm creating this thread hoping it will help someone with the same model.

This model has a bracket that holds the chip tray above the burner, and as the first picture shows, the tray was sitting more than 1/4" off of the burner. It's only supported by one screw in front and two holes in the back for the bracket end to poke through.

I removed the bracket and bent the front support crossbar, allowing the front side to sit lower against the burner. For the back, I bent the bracket ends upwards, then straightened out the tips that poked through the holes.

The last step was to bend the sides of the chip tray up, allowing it to sit lower in the bracket. When all these things were done, the chip tray is separated from the burner by less than 1/8", or the width of the bracket bar.

I fired up the smoker with a few chips, and the smoke started pouring out at 125F, a huge improvement.

Thanks to these forums for leading me to this simple fix, and hopefully, these pictures will help someone in the future who has the same bracket on their smoker.

 

[johnnyftw]

My recently purchased MES30 had the same problem, little to no smoke at max temp. Tried to get the chip tray closer to the heating element, but didn't go as far as you did on the modification mainly because no one had a detailed/photographed process of it yet and I didn't want to break anything.

After dealing with MB customer support and not getting any good resolutions from them, I ended up just buying the cold smoker kit to mount on the side and it honestly works really well, especially after using some 1/2 smoker gasket from amazon around the places in the cold smoker where smoke could leak out. Weeks later a new chip/housing assembly showed up in the mail, still sitting out in the garage in its unopened box...thanks Masterbuilt.

 

[cmayna]

Glad to see that the both of you folks seem to be on the way to a lot of smokin' There are a lot of Masterbuilt electric smoker owners here with lots of experience to share. Many of us have switched over to a separate smoke generator type of device and have never looked back. Don't hesitate to ask questions......

 

[The Big Cheese]

I also have a 30" MB, same issues with the tray. I just took some tinfoil and loosly crumpled it to a 1/4" rectangle the size of the tray, and placed it between the heating element and the bottom of the tray. Works pretty good. Then I got the MB offset smoker attachment, and just use that all the time now. I didn't attach the offset smoker directly (won't fit under the smoker cover) so i just sit the offset on the ground and use a couple of adjustable duct elbows.

 

[johnnyftw]

I also have a 30" MB, same issues with the tray. I just took some tinfoil and loosly crumpled it to a 1/4" rectangle the size of the tray, and placed it between the heating element and the bottom of the tray. Works pretty good. Then I got the MB offset smoker attachment, and just use that all the time now. I didn't attach the offset smoker directly (won't fit under the smoker cover) so i just sit the offset on the ground and use a couple of adjustable duct elbows.

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That cold smoker kit is fantastic, almost works too well and I found that out the hard way with some chicken breasts...they ended up a bit too smokey, couldn't taste the Bachan's japanese bbq sauce or the meat church holy gospel rub. Whoops.

I mounted mine to the side per the instructions, then zapped two short self-tapper screws from the inside of the smoker box in to the side of the MES30, which is on the same stand as yours. Until I can find or make a cover that fits, I just drag it in to the garage when not in use.