New Guy w/ MES 40

[Bearcarver]

LOL----I love my glass door--Maybe Bears are more curious than squirrels?? 

 

[biteme7951]

I preheat, but don't put my wood chips in until the meat goes in. Great idea Bear about boiling the water first. I'll start doing that. Also, ditto on what Todd said about foiling the water pan and the drip pan. I also have the AMS smoker and it really is awesome with the MES. The only regret I have is getting the unit with the window. I find it to be useless unless I spend hours cleaning it, plus it has a small leak. Other than that I am happy with the smoker.

I recently purchased a MES 40 and have done dried beef and 4 turkeys at once in it. Next stop....smoked whitefish!  I have a Bradley and a gas GOSM and this is by far the best smoker I have ever owned!!!    I found that if you use a Clorox disinfectant kitchen wipe on the window while it is still warm it will get the window crystal clear using one or 2 wipes. I follow it up with a warm wet cloth to take any extra wipe material off.  I really do like the window in mine especially with the light because I am less tempted to open it up while in use. The controls on this unit are fantastic and quite accurate.

 

[deltadude]

I agree with most of those tips.

One that I don't really appreciate is why bother preheating?  Why not let the meat get heated up that half hour or so it takes for the box to reach temperature?

I also use an extension cord -- but *NOT* one of the typical household cords one might use for a lamp.   Mine is 15 foot long, very heavy duty three-pronged cord.  I need that because my smoker setup is too far from the nearest plug -- plus if I set it up where the built in cord would reach, I'd be afraid of smoking up the side of the house.

One of the problems with the older MES which is the unit I have, without preheating in colder extreme outdoor ambient weather, the MES cooking temp will not be stable in the first hour or two, until all that metal gets heated up, this plays havoc with cooking times and can especially confuse those new to smoking meat.  Remember heat ALWAYS goes to cold, if your meat is at room temp say 75º when you put it in the smoker and outdoor ambient is in the 30s, a huge amount of that heat is leaving the heat box through the cold metal, eventually the heat that is syphoned through the cold metal will slow as all the metal heats including the insulating blanket and then bulk of heat will be absorbed by the next cold thing "meat".  Of course the meat will already be cooking but not efficiently .  Imagine a piece of meat in your oven cooking with the door of the oven open, yes the meat is getting cooked but not very efficiently.  The problem is solved by preheating, anyone want to take a bet, buy a new oven and look at the oven manual every one of those manuals will tell you to preheat your oven, then add your meat.

The newer higher wattage MES units still need to preheat but not as long because they have more BTUs of heat and can achieve a stable cooking temp faster.