Hi MNBrownie!
Welcome to:
Yeah, there is a learning curve to everything, and it is so with electric smokers, too.
Most have to do some adjustments, modifications, and downright corrections to get the results.
One of the best is to get an
AMNPS for your MES 30. That allows you to separate the smoke generation, from the heating of your new smoker/oven. The
AMNPS is nice because it will use Pellets for long hours of smoke, but can also be used to smolder sawdust for a cooler smoke.
Once the inadequacies of smoke production are corrected, you can get good results. Like a few hours of smoke, and 6 total hours of cooking. These things are really electric ovens, that can have smoke induced into them.
Many find they need an external thermometer to get better accuracy of the item they are Smoking/Cooking. Me Too! The OEM controller is rather iffy about accuracy. So separate monitoring helps a lot.
I found with mine that letting it warm up a long time actually helped get a better temperature control. That as a session progressed, the temperature would tend to settle in and become more stable.
But I like to smoke Salmon. I don't necessarily want it cooked, yet. Just smoked good. Then I cook it other ways. I also want to cold smoke things, Nuts, Bacon's of lately, So I personally needed control below the MES controls 100° lower ability. So I modified my electric controls to allow sub-100° temperature control. I dubbed it my By-pass Mode. Flip a switch and the MES 30 becomes cord controlled so an external temperature controller can be plugged into the wall, and the smoker plugged into the temperature control. Many use an Auber Brand for this, I used an Inkbird at first, and now use an Inkbird PID I built into a controller box for easy portability.
Once you decide to get an
AMNPS for your smoker, it makes the chip feeder obsolete. Some use the chip feed as an air inlet control, and just set the
AMNPS inside their MES.
I prefer to use what is lovingly called a "Mailbox Mod" around here. Mine is a bit different in that I have an old Sears Craftsman steel router storage box I chose to use as my "Mailbox". Now I use my mailbox mod all the time and it is my smoke generator for all my smoking. Cooled, cleaned smoke goes through 96" of 3" diameter tubing from my "mailbox" to my MES 30 (and will be also used for my newly acquired MES 40). So the smoke is always cool and any creosote is condensed out of it before it enters my Smoker.
But the idea behind the Mailbox Mod is to give a better separation between the MES and the smoke generation. You don't have to disturb the oven during the cooking/smoking session because the smoke part is outside the MES. (As you are probably aware, opening an oven upsets the actual cooking while the oven reheats and stabilizes again.)
One Member sez it best, "If you're lookin, you're not cookin." Holds true for purty near any cooker with a lid, or door.
So there are some ideas to make your MES 30 perfect. An AMNPS, and External Meat and Pit monitoring device, and if you want it, a Mailbox Mod.
