Smoker recommendation for 15-20lb of snack sticks?

[wesir]

Any recommendations for something that can do 15-20lb of snack sticks? I currently have a YS640 and while I can barely fit 15lb in as is the lowest I can set the controller is 150 and any temp swing usually leads to fat out in areas closer to the plate. I picked up an LG vertical pellet smoker as well for this purpose but after running it a few times for other things I doubt I'll be able to get lower than 150 unless it's super cold outside.

Looking for something decent sized that can run the lower temps, if it can cold smoke cheese that would be a definite positive but worst case I'm sure I could just stick my amazen tube smoker in it while turned off. Thanks!

 

[mike243]

MES cant be beat for sausages and such imo. 100-275 if I remember correctly

 

[wesir]

Thanks, I'll look into them, which one do you have?

 

[kawakx125]

IMO 15lbs of sausage/snack sticks is way too much in an MES40. takes FOREVER and is too crowded

 

[wesir]

IMO 15lbs of sausage/snack sticks is way too much in an MES40. takes FOREVER and is too crowded

You know which generation you have? Trying to do some research on them and was seeing that gen 2.5 (bluetooth gen) fixed some uneven temp issues and a bunch of other things but I guess my use case is super specific and those tests that people did might not apply to it.

 

[BGKYSmoker]

All depends on how much $$ you want to spend

 

[wesir]

All depends on how much $$ you want to spend

Under $1500

I doubt I could go any more expensive than my YS640 was unless I buy something trailer mounted or commercial grade. I considered getting a nice vertical offset and hooking up one of those smart blowers to the air intakes so I could have the convenience of pellet/electric with the benefit of coal but I couldn't find any good information on if it works with offsets or how reliable it would be.

 

[wesir]

I ordered an MES 340G, we'll see how it turns out. As long as it can maintain temps it seems like I can supplement smoke with a mailbox or bradley.

 

[bacon_crazy510]

Have you used your new smoker yet wesir ?

 

[wesir]

Have you used your new smoker yet wesir ?

Yea, I used it for the first time last Sunday and it seemed to work ok but I was having some temp issues. The side directly above the heating element seems to have a pretty big difference in temp as compared to the dead center and far left side. The thermocouple on it was bent pretty bad in shipping and I'm currently in the process of attempting to get a replacement thermocouple through the warranty but have a feeling that since the unit starts up and somewhat works they're going to attempt to claim that doesn't require replacement and refuse even though I paid for a brand new product and received a damaged one. I'll see what I can get out of them but I'm starting to realize that I paid $350 for an insulated box with a heating element and wheels, once I can find ground beef again in the stores to make more snack sticks I'll probably order an Auber wifi PID controller and cut out the POS bluetooth one they put in it.

If you're looking for an electric smoker it seems like you're going to want a PID controller to cover the fact that they build these units on the cheap end so they're more affordable for people. From what I've seen it seems like the analog ones are simple plug and play with the Auber controllers since you would just turn the analog option to the highest setting and plug it into the Auber and let that control everything, the 40" and my 340G have built in controllers so in order to set those up with a PID it seems like you need to make some alterations to the smoker to bypass the built in controller. Also worth mentioning that as others have stated the chip loader is a cool idea but you have to go dump more in every 30-40 min so you're better off adding a mailbox mod for an Amazen tube/maze smoker so it can go for hours instead.

Link to the temp issue thread I started after the cook with pics (I had 10lb of meat, maybe 1 lb of spice and 1lb of cheese in there, could probably fit 20lb if I loaded my dowels more tightly) :

MES 340G Temp Issues

Used my MES 340G for the first time today to do some snack sticks and seemed to get a pretty noticeable temp swing from the right to left sides, right side above the heating element cooked much faster than the left side did, there any mods people recommend to even this out? I saw something about...

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