MES 40" Wood Tray Upgrade from Mfg..

[supra0001]

Hi, I'd been scouring through all the info offered here since becoming a member a few days ago after having made my first purchase of an MES 40" and discovered that the Mfg. will send you an upgraded larger chip tray for simply calling and asking with no additional charges. I say that's cool!  Anyway, I have one on the way.  My question to those who may know is how much additional smoke time can I expect with the new, larger tray? I understand you can also mod the existing dump chute to enable more chips to be loaded to the larger pan.  If anyone has done this I'd love to hear from you how much the smoke time has improved.  Thanks, Tim

 

[chef jimmyj]

You get a very limited extended smoke time, 30 minutes instead of 20. Plus more smoke because of more chips burning. If I remember correctly the Retro Kit was to address getting smoke between 150 and 180*F. If you want to Set it and Forget it for anything up to 10 Hours...Get the AMNPS Pellet Smoke Generator from... http://www.amazenproducts.com Todd has 2 MES 40's and designed the AMNPS to take the hassle out of feeding the MES chips all night long. There is a variety of Wood flavors to choose from and Todd's Customer Service is unmatched. I have not loaded Chips in 10 months. Check it out...JJ

 

[supra0001]

JJ,  Thanks for that info.  I didn't realize the mod was to address smoke at lower temps verses longer smoke times, bummer!  I have been reading up on the [color= rgb(24, 24, 24)]AMNPS to take the hassle out of feeding chips every 30 minutes and I'm sure I will follow suite and go this route!  Looks like a good product from all I've read up on it.  Tim[/color]

 

[deltadude]

Actually the retrofit kit is a result of Masterbuilt changing the chip tray assembly so that the chip tray was approx half the size of the original AND they added a piece of metal that separated the bottom of the tray from the heat element.  The older style full size tray (ala same in retrofit kit) the bottom of the tray almost sits on the heat element.  The reason for the extra piece of metal in the new style (smaller size) tray, was due to increasing the heat elements wattage, on MES 40 from 800w to 1200w, and MES 30 from 500w to 800w (I might be wrong on original MES30 wattage, getting old and forget). Masterbuilt thought the extra piece of metal would slow down the chip burning process giving longer smoke times.  It worked! Instead of steady constant smoke there was little or no smoke.  Thus a retrofit kit.

The instructions in the New Owner MES Tips regarding the amount of chips to use still applies.  Chef Jimmy said it, buy an AWNPS it will give you hours of smoke time instead of minutes.

NOTE:  IMHO it is important to learn how to properly use the MES built in smoke system.  First if you follow the new owner tips and use hickory chips you will learn what TBS really looks like and smells like.  2nd, there are situations where the AWNPS may not stay lit or not work as planned and you have to fall back on the the MES built in system.