MES and Sausage

[jimmyinsd]

Hey all, just wondering what others do and where they get their most consistent results.

I am new to the MES and was hoping to do a batch of snack sticks this week. I made some goose pastrami yesterday and saw some temp differences as expected, but I am not sure if its a result of the MES being inconsistent left to right or if it was just the difference in pieces of meat.

anyway... I am wondering if I could make long sticks and drape them over wooden dowels from the top shelf supports, and let them hang for the duration, or if I would be better off cutting them to fit on the racks then flipping them end for end and rotating the racks top to bottom a few times during the cooking process?

how to you guys get your best results on sausage in your MES?

by the way I have a MES40 gen 2.5.

 

[chopsaw]

I hang mine from oak dowels . Works fine . I have a 30 so not as much temp difference from side to side , but sometimes I rotate if needed .

 

[jimmyinsd]

I hang mine from oak dowels . Works fine . I have a 30 so not as much temp difference from side to side , but sometimes I rotate if needed .

thanks for the reply, do you see much temp difference from top to bottom and what size MES do you run? ( i would think the 30 would be more uniform temp wise since its a smaller chamber.)

 

[SmokinAl]

I have a MES 40 for sausage & hang them on dowels, don't see much temp difference from top to bottom smoking at those low temps.
Al

 

[indaswamp]

When I used my MES 30 first gen. for smoking sausages, I added aluminum angle 3" from the top of the smoker to hang sausage on poles. I used 1/2" wood dowels. I could fit 12.5# in the smoker without issues doing it this way.

 

[dward51]

One thing I did notice that affected temps in my MES is the pellet tray that I used for a smoke source. The sticks directly over that tray were running hotter than the rest of the chamber (and it was more pronounced when they were hung as opposed to laying flat on the grates). I ended up putting a metal pan or aluminum sheet directly over the pellet tray to act as a heat baffle.

 

[jimmyinsd]

another question I just remembered, does anybody mess with their top vent? with my other cookers I have found that leaving the top wide open and adjusting the draft with the inlet is the best, but I am not trying to maintain a burn with the electric unit so I am not really sure if I should damper that down to hold in moisture or just leave it wide open?

when I am adding smoke I leave it wide open and have the chip loader pulled out a few inches to get more air in for a cleaner burn on the pellets, but once I pull the pellets I sometimes close the chip loader to slow the air flow. I am not really sure what is the best as I have only used the 40 once and the 30 I borrowed twice.

 

[jimmyinsd]

One thing I did notice that affected temps in my MES is the pellet tray that I used for a smoke source. The sticks directly over that tray were running hotter than the rest of the chamber (and it was more pronounced when they were hung as opposed to laying flat on the grates). I ended up putting a metal pan or aluminum sheet directly over the pellet tray to act as a heat baffle.

I noticed that yesterday with my goose pastrami, even though the amnps was on the bottom shelf and the goose breasts were on the 2nd shelf from the top, the 2 on the right side were running about 10 degrees warmer than those on the left, but after I took the amnps out at the 3 hour mark and rotated them to the opposite side they still finished a bit sooner than the other 3.

 

[tallbm]

I get temp differences from top to bottom and left to right in my MES 40.
The good thing is that my temp differences are fairly consistent so I know what to expect on rack 1 vs rack 4, left vs right etc.

I think you will be OK hanging or using the shelves. Either way you should be ok.
What I have done on my store bought pork Franks is to put probes (3) in sausages in the various hot areas.

I probe the lowest sausages in the left, middle, right areas of my smoker since those areas heat up the fastest.
When the sausage hit the desired temp I then go and probe the top sausages with my instant read.

So far I have been able to let them ride without swapping or messing with the hanging.
My lower sausages may get up to 165F by the time the upper hit 152-153F but I know from personal experience that a 165F sausage is OK if it was brought up gradually and properly.


With my wild pork sausages I have smoked them on racks and I am very careful to ensure that they all hit 165F to ensure they are safe since wild pork can have parasites that are killed at 165F for sure.
Having the wild pork sausages on racks makes it easier to test each sausage or area of sausages and then pull sausages as they hit 165F. It is also easy to then move the other sausages to the hotter areas so they hit 165F.
This way all wild pork sausages get to temp and all temp checking is as easy as possible.
I'll likely stick with this approach for wild pork sausage.

I hope this info helps :)

 

[jimmyinsd]

I get temp differences from top to bottom and left to right in my MES 40.
The good thing is that my temp differences are fairly consistent so I know what to expect on rack 1 vs rack 4, left vs right etc.

I think you will be OK hanging or using the shelves. Either way you should be ok.
What I have done on my store bought pork Franks is to put probes (3) in sausages in the various hot areas.

I probe the lowest sausages in the left, middle, right areas of my smoker since those areas heat up the fastest.
When the sausage hit the desired temp I then go and probe the top sausages with my instant read.

So far I have been able to let them ride without swapping or messing with the hanging.
My lower sausages may get up to 165F by the time the upper hit 152-153F but I know from personal experience that a 165F sausage is OK if it was brought up gradually and properly.


With my wild pork sausages I have smoked them on racks and I am very careful to ensure that they all hit 165F to ensure they are safe since wild pork can have parasites that are killed at 165F for sure.
Having the wild pork sausages on racks makes it easier to test each sausage or area of sausages and then pull sausages as they hit 165F. It is also easy to then move the other sausages to the hotter areas so they hit 165F.
This way all wild pork sausages get to temp and all temp checking is as easy as possible.
I'll likely stick with this approach for wild pork sausage.

I hope this info helps :)

very much, thank you.

 

[tallbm]

another question I just remembered, does anybody mess with their top vent? with my other cookers I have found that leaving the top wide open and adjusting the draft with the inlet is the best, but I am not trying to maintain a burn with the electric unit so I am not really sure if I should damper that down to hold in moisture or just leave it wide open?

when I am adding smoke I leave it wide open and have the chip loader pulled out a few inches to get more air in for a cleaner burn on the pellets, but once I pull the pellets I sometimes close the chip loader to slow the air flow. I am not really sure what is the best as I have only used the 40 once and the 30 I borrowed twice.

Most MES owners leave the vent wide open all the time.
I only ever close the vent all the way down to make the heat catch up as quickly as possible. This is done for preheat or after I have opened the door and want to recover heat as quickly as possible... this is why I rarely open the door on good and hot smokes. Opening the door on bacon and sausage smokes seems to be no big deal with it recovering temp to 160-170F so not fret here.

I don't see an issue with closing the vent down very low when you pull the AMPNS. I would still leave a little crack to let any lingering smoke move out. You don't want to trap smoke in and have it become stale. You will get horrible flavor from stale smoke.

Other than that I think it's always wide open and what you are doing is all in the realm of being safe :)

I noticed that yesterday with my goose pastrami, even though the amnps was on the bottom shelf and the goose breasts were on the 2nd shelf from the top, the 2 on the right side were running about 10 degrees warmer than those on the left, but after I took the amnps out at the 3 hour mark and rotated them to the opposite side they still finished a bit sooner than the other 3.

The heating element in the MES is right side oriented. The hottest spot in your MES is likely lowest rack bottom shelf.
The right side + back most portion of your smoker racks should always bet the hottest for their levels.
The left side + front most portion of your smoker racks should always be the lowest temp for their levels.

It's just the design of the smoker. I've tried numerous and even complex things to even out temps between racks and even across racks and at some point you just can't overcome the design of the smoker.
On my lowest rack I can keep about a 7-15 degree difference between the hot spot and the cold spot.
I can keep maybe about a 10-15 degree difference between rack levels.
I am also fairly consistent with 10-15 degrees across a rack at other levels but I rarely go beyond using 2 racks and I always use the bottom 2 racks so I can hit top temps and keep my management of the smoker as consistent as possible.
I have done all this by adding a convection fan, flipping the heating element, creating a space/volume reducing shelf for keeping the heat in as confined a cooking space as possible, etc. lol.

I hope this info helps.

 

[chopsaw]

thanks for the reply, do you see much temp difference from top to bottom and what size MES do you run? ( i would think the 30 would be more uniform temp wise since its a smaller chamber.)

I've had a gen 1 30 for 5 years . I know what it will and won't do , and how it runs . So I don't worry to much about temp readings . I know it's in the ballpark of what I want , and just make sure I don't push the temp to high for sausage .
I always like to add when I first got mine , I hated it . After using it and learning it , I could not do without it . Used for so many things on a weekly basis .
Enjoy.