Steam and creosote in masterbuilt cold/slow smoker

[yqyxzroh]

I am smoking Bear Mountain BBQ pellets in a Masterbuilt cold/slow smoker attached to a Masterbuilt digital electric smoker. Here is how I started it:

• Add pellets to cold smoker attachment about ~70% of the way. Online reviews I've read said that the cold/slow smoker works with pellets despite the user manual saying chips only
• Turned on cold smoker attachment
• Ran cold smoker attachment for about 15 minutes - at this point it was already connected to the main body, but there was no food in the main body.
• Turned off cold smoker attachment - Online reviews I've read say you only need to get the pile of pellets/chips started, and once they're lit they will slowly burn by themselves. (similar to snake method for charcoal)
• Add food to main body
• At this point, my smoke was looking like this:
  • 
    The smoke at this point did not smell bad or anything. I occasionally opened the lid of the cold smoker to check for smoke but did not open the cap blocking the pellets.
• About 3-4 hours in the cook, I opened the top of the cold smoker attachment chimney to take a look at how many pellets were left.
  • After this point, I would occasionally open the lid of the cold smoker and saw that there was a ton of steam/water that collected on the bottom of the lid. It fairly wet. There was also thick sticky black residue all around in the inside of the cold smoker attachment. I'm assuming that was creosote. I feel like opening the cap that blocked the pellets might've caused a flareup or something to cause the burn to go bad? Because the first 3-4 hours were fine...
  • The smoke coming from the slow/cold smoker was slightly bitter, but the smoke coming out from the top of the smoker body was not..

Was my smoke before I opened the cap blocking the pellets considered good/clean smoke?
Did opening the cap blocking the pellets cause the issue of steam/creosote buildup? I believe the manual does say to not to open the cap as it may cause flareups. The pellets I am using were not soaked or anything like that.
Does anyone have any experience with the masterbuild cold/slow smoker? How about using it with pellets instead of chips?

 

[daveomak]

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[TNJAKE]

Cold smoking is gonna cause alot more build up than normal due to the lack of airflow. It's not a issue

 

[yqyxzroh]

Cold smoking is gonna cause alot more build up than normal due to the lack of airflow. It's not a issue

I just checked the interior of my cold smoker and it seems that most of the paint got burned off... I guess opening the cap blocking the pellets caused a flare up due to the sudden influx of oxygen and started an internal fire or something. About half of the interior paint has completely bubbled off.
Would it be a good idea to simply scrape the remaining paint off and use the cold smoker attachment bare metal?

 

[MJB05615]

Welcome from Ga. I have been using that Cold Smoke attachment for at least 7 years, I think longer. I have never used Pellets in it. Only Chips, or Smaller chunks I chopped from larger chunks. Either way, at first when it is newer you'll find some of the paint bubbling after the first few uses. You can scrape it off and go bare metal, I don't know if that would eventually rust. I only had a little in the interior of the top lid. I cleaned with a dry cloth the first few times, and it didn't seem any worse. I do clean the wood chip tower, bottom screen and ash drawer after every use. During the cooks, I often do open the tower lid to look inside and it introduces more air which may cause a slight flare up, but very minor. Lastly, I never fill it more than 25%. Whenever I've gone more than that, it doesn't smoke as efficiently. 25% lasts about an hour to an hour and a half. I hope this helps. Oh I also us an AMNPS tube inside the MES 40 with pellets for additional flavoring.

Mike

 

[yqyxzroh]

Welcome from Ga. I have been using that Cold Smoke attachment for at least 7 years, I think longer. I have never used Pellets in it. Only Chips, or Smaller chunks I chopped from larger chunks. Either way, at first when it is newer you'll find some of the paint bubbling after the first few uses. You can scrape it off and go bare metal, I don't know if that would eventually rust. I only had a little in the interior of the top lid. I cleaned with a dry cloth the first few times, and it didn't seem any worse. I do clean the wood chip tower, bottom screen and ash drawer after every use. During the cooks, I often do open the tower lid to look inside and it introduces more air which may cause a slight flare up, but very minor. Lastly, I never fill it more than 25%. Whenever I've gone more than that, it doesn't smoke as efficiently. 25% lasts about an hour to an hour and a half. I hope this helps. Oh I also us an AMNPS tube inside the MES 40 with pellets for additional flavoring.

Mike

Pellets were smoking fine (smoke was sorta white/thick tho) before I opened the cap. After the cap opened, a LOT of the interior paint bubbled up and peeled off. From reading other reviews, it seems that this is caused by excessive heat so I'm assuming that opening the cap caused a flareup/fire. I think I'm going to return or scrap the cold smoker attachment and use a AMNPS maze smoker inside my MES as it has decent reviews.

When you use your AMNPS, do you have any issues with ash building up inside the smoker and getting on your food or anything? Do you put it on the lowest cooking tray above the water pan or put it on the grease pan below the water pan?
I think I will eventually do something like the mailbox mod for cold smokes but in the meantime I'll probably have to use it internally.

 

[bill1]

It sounds like your cook went well so all's well that ends well. :-)
I've wanted to get one of those Masterbuilt pyramidal feed cold smoker attachments myself but the price never seemed quite right. So I'm speaking out of ignorance...

However I'd mention that the screen at the bottom that lets air in while holding up the fuel at the little round heating element (when it's on) is quite coarse. I think using pellets instead of chips will give you much more "ash" below, because many pellets will drop through before they've had a chance to burn/smoke away much of their volume. So you may have to empty that region (side tray?) out quite often if you use pellets. Could that be part of the issue here?

 

[MJB05615]

It sounds like your cook went well so all's well that ends well. :-)
I've wanted to get one of those Masterbuilt pyramidal feed cold smoker attachments myself but the price never seemed quite right. So I'm speaking out of ignorance...

However I'd mention that the screen at the bottom that lets air in while holding up the fuel at the little round heating element (when it's on) is quite coarse. I think using pellets instead of chips will give you much more "ash" below, because many pellets will drop through before they've had a chance to burn/smoke away much of their volume. So you may have to empty that region (side tray?) out quite often if you use pellets. Could that be part of the issue here?

That does sound feasible with the pellets, so I wouldn't use them in the Cold Smoke Attachment.
When I use the AMNPS tube or tray, I never have ashes getting on my food, as long as you don't move it around while it in use. I have an MES 40 gen 1 I think. I place mine on the Bottom left, opposite side of the top vent. I also keep the top vent all the way open, and have removed the internal wood chip drawer. This allows a little more air flow inside to keep the AMNPS stay lit. The mailbox mod is an excellent idea. IF my Cold Smoke attachment fails, I'm switching over to the mailbox mod.

Mike

 

[mike243]

I dont think there is any paint on the inside of it, outside maybe, they don't put paint places it might get burned up and get into food

 

[SmokinAl]

I had one of those MB cold smoke units & used chips in it, but needed to put a large pipe between the unit & the smoker to get the creosote out of the smoke. Then you get nice clean smoke on the meat, but the unit itself just clogs up with creosote. Don’t use it anymore, use an AMNPS instead!
Here is a photo of my setup.

5-11-16 17.JPG

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Al

 

[MJB05615]

That's one heck of a setup Al. I've thought of adding the long pipe, but I'm not having a problem with creosote, the smoke from it is usually nice. Starts out very thick, but after 3-5 minutes lessens. I also use the AMNPS tube inside the MES 40 when I want 2 different flavors.

Mike

 

[yqyxzroh]

I dont think there is any paint on the inside of it, outside maybe, they don't put paint places it might get burned up and get into food

There is definitely paint inside and it has definitely bubbled off... Fortunately the smoke that came out of the main smoker body didn't smell bad (smoke coming out of the cold smoker attachment did smell bad) but I am not risking it.

I had one of those MB cold smoke units & used chips in it, but needed to put a large pipe between the unit & the smoker to get the creosote out of the smoke. Then you get nice clean smoke on the meat, but the unit itself just clogs up with creosote. Don’t use it anymore, use an AMNPS instead!
Here is a photo of my setup.

Al

Interesting, thank you for the tip. Do you need to add a fan inside the tube/piping or no?

That's one heck of a setup Al. I've thought of adding the long pipe, but I'm not having a problem with creosote, the smoke from it is usually nice. Starts out very thick, but after 3-5 minutes lessens. I also use the AMNPS tube inside the MES 40 when I want 2 different flavors.

Mike

Can you tell any major difference (in terms of taste) between using the AMNPS inside versus putting it outside in a mailbox mod type setup?

 

[bill1]

Now I really want of these things...if you're making creosote, you must be making gobs of smoke! :-)
Alas they're kind of expensive. :-(

From having made smoke generators like this I can attest that a gravity-fed fuel pipe (or the pyramid in this case) can get very hot. The Zn comes right off galvanized steel, and any paint on the inside of this would come right off too. I wonder if MB has discontinued the inside paint in later units due to complaints like this? Of course then they'd get complaints about them rusting out. (Can't please all the people all the time.)

Again, I'm only a voyeur coveting these things, I'm not a participant. But I think the secret is to definitely season these at high heat (leave the switch on) for at least a couple hours the first time you use it--just let it blow smoke in your patio. (Dont' jostle or bump it...that's hard on the element.) And if bare steel is showing after your cook, spray some of that aerosol cooking oil on it when putting it away. Removing the pyramid (and screen) and spraying in upside down should distribute the oil without making a mess. That's what I do on all the bare steel in my pellet smoker too when I put it away.

The screen that holds the chips (so they don't fall out) on top of the element appears to be 1/4" grid wires. You can get many square feet of that stuff in the garden dept of Walmart for <$10. If you cut another piece to place on top of the factory piece, such that the pattern is shifted out of phase in x & y, you'll get effectively 1/8" grid wires. You can use only pellets then if that's your wont and they won't fall through prematurely.

However the garden stuff is galvanized so if you're real concerned about that, caveat emptor. I think it's a small enough amount that I don't worry, esp if you put several feet of pipe before you cooker space to condense out moisture and settle out any Zn. Perhaps the MB screen is stainless steel, but I doubt it. You can probably get SST wire grid on line, but it won't be cheap.

 

[Khrakk]

I used to used the cold/slow smoking attachment on my old MES30. I wore 3 or 4 of them out. The ones purchased a long time ago were painted on the inside, the newer ones did not. It did not really bother me because the insides would eventually get coated with smoke residue, so paint in my opinion was pointless.

I initially started using chips, and I found they would often jam. I tried pellets and they worked fine. They also jammed in the shoot sometimes, but I kept a thin metal spike that I used to free them up. The only trouble I ever had was on really large pieces of meat or with the water pan generating lots of steam causing the pellets to come apart into a coarse sawdust in the shoot. I usually did not use water pan or smoke large meats, so sawdust was rare. Generally, the pellets did not create a lot of ash. I'd typically empty the ash drawer before I started a new smoke. I always left the cold/slow smoker power on when I used it. I've never been much of a cold smoker although I'd make jerky at a relatively cold temp, and having the attachment on did not hinder my jerky making.

After I burned up my last cold smoker, I tried the tube in my MES30 and never looked back. In fact, I bought a slow smoker attachment at the same time, but it never even came out of the box (I liked the tube that much). I put my tube on the rack just above the loading port and pulled the loader 1/4 to about 1/2 way out to give it some air. Tons of maintenance free smoke and very little ash.