Not much smoke from my 30" Masterbuilt

[merlyn1948]

I seasoned my new 30" Masterbuilt Digital yesterday per the instructions. Temp set to 275 for 3 hours with the last 30 minutes adding the wood chips. When I added the wood chips after about 2Hr 45min in noticed there was not much smoke being produced regardless of how the vent on top was set. I could smell the smoke and see light whiffs of smoke coming out the top but I really expected more smoke. Does this mean I have a problem with the smoker? How much smoke should you see when things are working correctly? Obviously I am totally new to doing this.

 

[gearjammer]

They don't smoke that great especially in the summer
the element isn't really on long enough.
One of the sponsors here is Amazen smokers
You get you one of those, you will get the smoke
you need.
Hope this helps.

Ed

 

[frankly]

I seasoned up my MES 30 on July 4th weekend and have used it for three smokes so far.  I don't typically get a lot of smoke out of the smoker either, but you sure do get some smoke flavor imparted into your meats!  Just a Thin Blue Smoke (TBS) is all you really want/need.  One thing you can try if you want to see more immediate smoke is jack the temp a bit so the heating element kicks on (the Heating light will illuminate on the MES if yours has one) and the chip plate should get hotter then and more quickly smoke off the chips.  If the smoker is at a steady temp then maybe the heating element is not on so much and the chip plate is cooler than when the heating element is running to heat up the unit.  Just a thought.

If you don't have one, get a trusty oven (or other type) thermometer to verify your smoker temp independent from the MES thermostat.  I have found some fairly big variances in temps on different racks and still working through building an understanding of exactly how the MES heats up through experimentation...