MES.... hot corner!

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pignit

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
SMF Premier Member
I had to drop this pic in here to show just how much hotter that right hand corner in the MES is. I'm goin to experiment more with the baffle idea. I had a small baffle in place but it fell down at the beginning of the smoke so I just left it off. Now I have a before picture to go by. Sorry for the blurry pic but as you can see... the chicken thigh on the right rear had a considerable amount of heat compared to the rest. These were in the smoker untouched on the second rack up for about 3.5 hours.


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Well dave you really have a delimma going on there. I think that you should try to make that mod aittle more stronger. But the good thing is you still have a bunch of good chicken left to much on.
 
I'll bet you a quarter that you had a little fire going on back there. This is a MES problem with greasy stuff and a good reason for foil over the burner / chip box area. When you get in there cleaning, you'll see more evidence of a small fire back in the corner.

I've been there recently too. Opened the door right on time to see it, threw a big glass of water on it and back to relaxin'. That was it. Mine happened right after adding chips.

Curtis
 
That may have been what happened. I've always had a hot spot in that corner but nothing has ever burnt up like this. Hadn't thought of that because I've never seen a flare up inside the MES. Thanks... I'll be watchin it closer.
 
Dave..what your probably seeing is the radiant heat coming off the element. If I remember correctly, don't think there is anything covering the short element section that goes across from the back wall to the housing. The IR heat coming off the glowing red element has a direct line of sight to anything in the corner. Your baffle idea will do the trick. Just pop rivet on a flap to cover the exposed element.
 
Maybe as simple as loading less chips into the chip tray at the end of where the chip tray handle is or manually loading the burning area instead of using the chiptray.....
 
PignIt, that is intentionally designed to do that so you don't have to work as hard to have Burnt Ends when you do briskets...
 
I can see where there would be more heat in the corner because of the location of the element. actually the element comes into the firebox about 5 inches out of the corner. The smoke box is baffled and there isn't any direct heat source from there even if it were to catch on fire. I think the water pan diverted the heat from the element over to the corner. . I checked and didn't see any evidence of a grease fire in the corner. I was just amazed at the concentration of heat in that one corner. I mean.... look at that one piece of chicken. I was amazed.
 
Wasn't it you and Ron that was working on making a baffle mod to the MES?
 
Yea.... I had a baffle rigged up when I started this smoke. I didn't do a good job riggin it in there and it fell. I know there is a need to divert some of that heat to the middle. Thing was... right off it fell and I had to open it up and pull the pieces out so there was no baffle. I think it's an easy fix. There must be an incredible amount of heat in that corner to turn that one piece of chicken black. I'm thinkin a false ceiling to divert the exhaust so that it pulls more from the middle instead of the corner. I can't help but mess with stuff.
 
Maybe you could devise a Tuning Plate like the ones people make for SFB units to allow less heat nearer the heat source and more the farther away you get...
 
Does anyone know if the "no smoke fix" from MES fixes the hot spot issue too? Mine shipped today so I should have by the weekend but if I need to fix the hotspot I'd like to get that done now.
 
no it does not fix the hot spot issue.

 that is a problem w/ any electric smoker .The area over the element will be hotter.

 On the MES the easiest fix i have found is one Ron P showed me. An UNGLAZED!! ceramic tile placed over the chip tray spreads out the heat and stops the hot spot.
 
Those of you who are experiencing this problem, are you smoking with the water pan in place, even though you have no water in it?
 
Um, I haven't read this post thoroughly, did anyone suggest putting the 5x9" chunk of ceramic tile on top of the chip box into the hot corner sort of forcing the heat elsewhere?  Worked for me.
 
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