My next build.

[Steve H]

The water pan is over the hole. My thought was that the water tray would disperse the smoke. If the fan isn't needed then that would be fine as well. I guess this will be a wait and see.

 

[tallbm]

Yeah I think at this point it is simply test and learn time. The good thing is you don't seem to be painted into a corner in any way and you can still make all kinds of changes if needed.

I'm looking forward to your testing and the results :)

 

[Steve H]

Fired up the smoker today.Set it at 107 C. Which is just under 225 F. pretty much dead on.
Now I need to get something cooking!

 

[Steve H]

I also tried out my mailbox/fan combo. I'm happy to say that it worked great! I lit the tray, put the fan on low, and got nice TBS into the smoker. I let it run for 30 minutes. And with it being 50 degrees outside. The smoker stayed at 58-59 degrees. Worked for me! So, I loaded 8 pounds of cheddar in. And let it go for 3 hours. Cheese came out nice. I had a piece right away. And I am quite pleased with it.

 

[tallbm]

That is fantastic to hear!
I haven't smoked anything in a while so I'm jealous :)
Honestly I shouldn't smoke anything for some time. I have a BUNCH of venison to eat through in the freezer and I kind of picked up another "cooking" hobby that has been taking up my free time.

Maybe I'll take some time soon to prep and do a bunch of ground venison jerky. That would give me something to smoke, use up quite a bit of venison I have, AND reduce the freezer space with all the ground venison I use to at least half once I freeze the finished product :D

The biggest Issue I have is that I can't fit more than about 5 pounds of ground meat in my smoker to turn into jerky and I probably have about 20 pounds I would like to do.
Maybe I'll do 5 in the smoker and 5 in the oven.
Split it up where I do some kind of teriyaki flavor or a flavor that doesn't really need smoke in the oven and then do the other flavor in the smoker. I could get 20 pounds done in 2 batches simultaneously

 

[Steve H]

That would work. I'm really surprised with how well the oven jerky comes out. I haven't had venison jerky in quite some time. My supplier is no longer here.

 

[tallbm]

That would work. I'm really surprised with how well the oven jerky comes out. I haven't had venison jerky in quite some time. My supplier is no longer here.

I'm also very impressed with oven jerky. I never would have thought of it if the LEM seasoning pack I used in the past didn't mention it as a method hahaha

 

[kmbelt81]

I just bought the Inkbird ITC-106 with SSR. I'm collecting other components to get it all hooked when it comes in so i can put it on my MES 30. What would be the minimum gauge wire for power to the PID and smoker. I have 14ga on hand, but not sure it's heavy enough.

 

[Steve H]

I just bought the Inkbird ITC-106 with SSR. I'm collecting other components to get it all hooked when it comes in so i can put it on my MES 30. What would be the minimum gauge wire for power to the PID and smoker. I have 14ga on hand, but not sure it's heavy enough.

I believe the MES 30 has a 800 watt heating element which is around 6.5 AMPS. So 14ga wire is fine.