MES How to get to temp quickly

[russki1313]

Hi, I just got the MES and i was wondering how do you guys to 225F quickly. Do you first preheat it? Do you set it for higher than 225 and then turn it down? Mine takes a long time to get to 225 loaded with meat, i tried today because the manual said not to preheat?
Please help me and as silly as it sounds, tell me how to start smoking with the MES.

 

[ronp]

What size did you get? When you say long, how long. As long as you are getting smoke that is all that matters. Also how much meat?

Good luck!

 

[pantherfan83]

If you don't already, put boiling water in the pan?

 

[jamminjimi]

I always preheat with a full pan of water. I also go above the temp I want to use. Say I want to cook at 225* I will preheat to 250* to 260*. When I put the meat in it will come down to my temp. Reset my temp to 225* and all is good.

 

[russki1313]

I took like over an hour close to 1.5 hrs to get to about 200F last night. But i then did a reset by pulling the plug and then plugged it in and it went upto 225F. But just as a rule of thumb what times are people getting to get the thing to 225F meat or no meat?

 

[smokeguy]

This is what I do too usually. I at least have it preheating while I'm getting all of my other stuff ready and even if it's only up to 150 or whatever, that makes a big difference in time to temp.
And I have the meat out of the fridge while I'm getting everything ready. Even though the manual says you don't have to preheat, I've found it definitely makes a difference in the first recovery time to get back to set temp.
If you have a lot of meat going in there, it can take a couple of hours to get back to your set temp (like 4-8 butts or 2-4 packers for example) and may be what you saw last night.
Preheating in non-windy and warm temps is done in about 1/2 hour or so I would estimate.

 

[fourthwind]

When I get up in the morning for an all day smoke, the first thing I do is turn the MES on, and put my water pan in with Hot liquids. It does take awhile, but I believe the longer it heats up and gets the insulation and everything warm, the better off you are when you put the meat in. I have in the past when cooking large amounts of meats, put the meats in foil pans into the oven at 250 until the MES warms up. This gets the meats coming up to temp and keeps the MES from dipping down too much.

 

[mythmaster]

I set mine to 270* about an hour before I'm ready to load it. Then when I load it, the temp will drop, of course, and I set it to 230*. Also, I leave the vent closed despite what the MES tips here say because it works better for me that way as far as producing smoke goes. The temp is also more accurate (usually within 2*). This is with 1/2 to 3/4 tray of water, and I'm using the 30" model.

 

[deltadude]

MES New Owner Tips:

Current MES Mods are shown here.
__________________

 

[kre756]

Speaking of temps. I smoked today and used my new Maverick Redi-Chek Smoker thermometer. If the Redi-Chek was correct the MES was running around 43 degrees high. The digital on the smoker was set at 225 and the thermometer was reading 268. The pork shoulder looks like it cooked quicker than planned so I'm thinking the thermometer is correct. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Kevin

 

[skillet]

So I have the MES 40" with window and the 1200 watt element.

Just got it two days ago and first smoke was yesterday into today. I've noticed the two times now I've started it and set it at 250*, I didn't pay extremely close attention but I think it was to temp in about 30 minutes, and yes I use almost boiling water in the pan.

Kevin,
I was seeing the opposite on mine. Temps yesterday here was a stable 72* and light variable wind, those storms were all around us, and missed me thank goodness.

I set it for 250 to start planning on turning it down after the first recovery, however I had two others temp probes (a sur la table one that is a combo food/oven type and a no name one) that i had in a potato on the second rack towards the front of the smoker, and the combo one was in the brisket.

The potato one was reading 210 for the first 5 hours, not sure if i didn't have it far enough through or what. The other one was reading 225-235. Not sure about which was right I move my temp to 240 and left it. But looks like it was running a little low for me, maybe 10-15 degrees versus the built in one.

Have the Maverick ET-73 on the way so I'll have another one from comparison. Won't ever be able to close my vent but that isn't a problem.