Hello. I'm a rookie with my new MES30 and AMNPS. I just tried my first rack of baby backs and a 5.5lb bone-in pork loin end roast. For the ribs I cut it in half to fit in the smoker, peeled off the membrane on the bottom, smouthered in a mixture of mainly yellow mustard with some mesquite marinade and XXX bbq sauce mixed in for more flavor. This ended up sitting in the fridge for a couple days before I found time to smoke it. Once the smoker was preheated a little, I covered them in rub and tossed them in the smoker set at 250 degrees with one row of AMNPS loaded with cherry. I also put the pork loin roast in on the second to highest rack by the vent. The roast I brined overnight (some recipe off of here), then injected creole butter marinade and coated in rub. After about an hour I noticed that the temp on my remote said between 240 and 250. My analog oven guage only said 190-200. With a little bit of confusion I opened up at 2 hours to wrap the ribs in foil. I moved the oven guage to a different spot. I also poked the attached probe into the roast along with an analog meat guage. I also noticed the whole row of pellets was burned up already in the amnps. I turned the smoker up to 275 (max) and completely closed chip loader that I previously had as extra intake vent for amnps. Still only got 200ish degrees on the oven guage after this. The remote told me it was at about 230-240. Neither would get any higher. I left ribs cook in foil for 1.5-2 hrs. After foiling I left ribs on for one more hour and pulled the roast out 30 minutes after that when my analog meat guage said 140ish (the attached probe said 180, which I already knew was way off). In conclusion, the ribs were ok. Not very tender and definitelty not fall off the boneish at all. They had good flavor, but I like them way more tender. Would they have been more tender pull apart like if I could have goten the MES hotter? I have no idea why I couldn't get it up to temp. The roast I foiled for around 45 minutes after taking out of the mes. Cut it up and it was pretty good. The injection was amazing. Top half of roast was a bit more done than bottom which was just barely done. I pulled some of the roast for sandwhiches and sliced a bunch for whatever. I'll post pics of my smoke job and maybe someone will see what I did wrong and why the temp would only get so high. Or why my ribs weren't very tender...
