Hi all,
Great forum! Tons of great info here.
I'm new to smoking meat (just got my smoker), and just tried my new smoker for the first time this past weekend. I picked up the MasterBuilt Pro dual fuel vertical smoker (model #20050412).
The first run went pretty well considering I've never smoked meat before. I smoked two racks of ribs and a bunch of sausages - they both turned out great. I did identify several issues though, many of which I'm sure are due to my inexperience, and some that might be inherent to the design of my new smoker.
1) During break in I noticed that my wood chips were basically incinerating, even with the burner on the lowest setting. Even though I soaked the chips for over an hour they still kept burning up during the break in run. I ended up putting chips in a cast iron pan and setting it on the stock chip tray - no more fire and finally some actual smoke.
2) The upper door leaks smoke like crazy. At first I thought the door latch might be misadjusted from the factory, but no amount of adjustment would result in any sort of improvement.
3) The lowest continuous temperature that I could achieve while still producing smoke was approx. 250 degrees F. I had to continuously babysit the smoker, adjusting the burner to try to find that elusive sweet spot that would heat the chips enough to produce smoke without sending temperatures soaring. I tried using just the burner valve, adjusting the tank valve, multiple combinations of both - nothing seemed to work... Ambient temperature was in the 70's that day, so I'm concerned that this problem will be much worse in the summer.
I'd appreciate any advice or direction other folks might have to offer with respect to the above issues, especially as they relate specifically to Masterbuilt two-door vertical propane smokers. Thanks in advance for the help!
Great forum! Tons of great info here.
I'm new to smoking meat (just got my smoker), and just tried my new smoker for the first time this past weekend. I picked up the MasterBuilt Pro dual fuel vertical smoker (model #20050412).
The first run went pretty well considering I've never smoked meat before. I smoked two racks of ribs and a bunch of sausages - they both turned out great. I did identify several issues though, many of which I'm sure are due to my inexperience, and some that might be inherent to the design of my new smoker.
1) During break in I noticed that my wood chips were basically incinerating, even with the burner on the lowest setting. Even though I soaked the chips for over an hour they still kept burning up during the break in run. I ended up putting chips in a cast iron pan and setting it on the stock chip tray - no more fire and finally some actual smoke.
2) The upper door leaks smoke like crazy. At first I thought the door latch might be misadjusted from the factory, but no amount of adjustment would result in any sort of improvement.
3) The lowest continuous temperature that I could achieve while still producing smoke was approx. 250 degrees F. I had to continuously babysit the smoker, adjusting the burner to try to find that elusive sweet spot that would heat the chips enough to produce smoke without sending temperatures soaring. I tried using just the burner valve, adjusting the tank valve, multiple combinations of both - nothing seemed to work... Ambient temperature was in the 70's that day, so I'm concerned that this problem will be much worse in the summer.
I'd appreciate any advice or direction other folks might have to offer with respect to the above issues, especially as they relate specifically to Masterbuilt two-door vertical propane smokers. Thanks in advance for the help!