AMNTS product for electric smoker

[rutledj]

I'm new to smoking and started out with this Masterbuilt 30" electric smoker received for Christmas. I smoked a pork butt in it and was quite pleased with the results.

I've seen the amazen products mentioned in some posts but I have yet to find an explanation as to how they work. It looks like you fill them with chips and place them inside the smoker.

Where do they go inside?

Do they take the place of putting wood chips in the normal metal tube that slides in\out of the smoker?

I'm assuming these produce smoke for much longer so you don't have to constantly add chips. What size would you use in the Masterbuilt 30?

Appreciate any advice.

Rut

[DWCowles]

Welcome rutledj

[Potkettleblack]

The A-Maze-N tubes and mazes work with pellets, not so good with chips. I have a 12" tube. I don't put it on the burner. I've gotten various results with putting it over the turned off sear burner, putting it in the middle of the meat in the cool side, and putting it under the grate on cool flavorizer bars.

You light one end of it. The combustion is slow, and lights via the "fuse" method, to keep starting more pellets, very gradually. I could not suggest their use with the masterbuilt. They should improve the smoke, as they have a bit more combustion that an electric smoker.

[fuzzydaddy]

Welcome rutledj! We'd love to get an intro from you over in the Introduce Yourself channel when you get a minute. Thanks!

[RonB]

Welcome to The Pit Rut.

[Danjohnston949]

rutledj, Welcome to "The Pit"! You are Now Enrolled in the BBQ Univ.! Attendance and Participation are Mandatory!
Enjoy "The Pit"!
Eat Well and Prosper! From a Backyard Cremator in Fargo ND, Dan

[Advantage49]

I had the MES electric and used the AMAZIn tray with amazin (no pun I traded ) results.

Here is a YouTube link that explains how it works and how to use it. THe best feature is it smokes for hours!!! No need to keep opening the door or refilling chips

https://youtu.be/-81MOUYvEWs

[GadjetGriller]

rutledj I started out with a Masterbuilt Electric smoker. Dont know if they still suggest this or not? but they use to say soak the wood chips before using!! Please DONT do that. Sure it made a lot of White smoke that made me think ooooh this is gonna be good! Really it was mostly Steam and didn't flavor the meat much at all. I bought a 12 inch amazing tube (I'm lazy didn't want to have to reload on long cooks) but found that finding a place big enough to fit the 12 inch was difficult. The 6 inch would work just fine for most cooks! (yes it did help put more smoke flavor on to the meat!)

[beerwort]

You will see the A-Maze-N maze at the bottom left setting on the bars next to the smokebox / heating element.​ I use it to cold smoke my bacon and also to suplement reg chips. The maze last about 6 hrs.

[rutledj]

Thanks for the info. I ordered the tray and some hickory pellets. Should be here Friday. Going to try another butt since they are on sale this week at local grocer.

Another question, I noticed that the water pan never really lost any water the first time I did a butt. Shouldn't it evaporate?

[beerwort]

I never put water in the pan, the humity this close to Lake Michigan is more than enough. I use it to catch dripping

[rutledj]

Ok. So I purchased one of the trays and pellets. Tried it out this weekend on my 2nd attempt at smoking. Sat. night around 10 pm I put a pork butt in the smoker set at 225 degrees. Loaded the tray with hickory pellets and used a torch to light one end. Let it flame for about 10 minutes and blew it out and placed in bottom smoker (top vent wide open).

Went to bed thinking I would wake up to a mostly cooked butt however the pellets stopped burning shortly after I put them in the smoker. Barely any of them were burned. Decided to do a fast smoke and lit both ends and put it back in. This time the all burned.
Butt was great and had much more smoked flavor than I expected it to. Almost too much if that is possible.

Was that due to me adding it in at the later stage? Also, I thought this 8 lb. butt would cook in about 12-15 hours. At 5:00 pm Sunday the thermometer was only reading 197. I took it out (wanted to make it to 203) since I had to go somewhere but it was still tender and good. At about 167 degrees (around 10 am Sun. morning) I took the butt out and wrapped it in foil.

Assuming my Thermoworks Smoke thermometer is working correctly, the inside temp stayed pretty close to target the complete time (no alarms went off for out of range). So is it typical to take this long? It was in there 19 hours. Outside temp, if it matters, was in the 40's.

[Advantage49]

Does your MES have the chip dump on the right side? If so I would recommend putting the tray there and pulling out the chip dump an inch. Sometime soon you need more airflow an order to keep it going.

also, here are some tips I learned try and protect the tray from drippings, sometime if the butts are dropping fat it can either A) cause it to go out or B) cause a huge flare up. I've had both happen so what I ended up doing was creating a drip cover over the tray. I wish I still had it so I can take a picture a picture but I gave my tray to my dad since I bought GMG. You can also Tent it with alumnimium foil.

also, I cooked a 6 pound but over the weekend ambient was average of 20, but I had a thermal blanket on the grill to cut down on wind and heat lost, and my butt took 12.5 hours to 201. As I learned from this website, it's done when it's done lol.

any pictures of your butt? (Pork butt that is)

[beerwort]

Sometimes I will microwave the pellets for 3 to 4 minutes to drive out any moisture from temp swings in the garage. That's prob why they brunt so well the next morning, dryed out over nite in the smoker. I also pull the chip dump to improve air flow. You can cut the cook time some by cooking at 250 to 275 and it will still be great.

[CandySueQ]

Wow! Never heard of microwaving to get moisture out! Thanks for the info, beerwort!

[Backpacker Brown]

To RUTLEDJ: I didn't have much luck with the wood chip method that came with my MES 30 so I went to the A-MAZE-N pellet tray. It worked well and produced sufficient smoke, but I had trouble keeping it lit - just my own ineptness ? Of course, every time I opened the door to re-light it, i just added 30 to 60 minuets to the cook. There had to be another options On another forum, a guy used a mailbox with a clothes dryer vent hose to attach the mailbox to the smoker to set his tray in. He had also removed the chip assembly. This seems to work pretty well. At least when the tray goes out, i don't have to open the door.

Sorry about the picture, which I'm not sure got attached. I don't really know how to attach them = as you can well see. I'm really not even sure how to respond to you - rutledj.

If you want more (and better info) let me know, and I'll do a better job of describing my method to you.

[Spinaker]

I started out on a Masterbuilt Electric smoker. I used to put chunks of wood and Kingsford in the tray with the heating element. I found that method gave me pretty good smoke. Just throw the chunks and briquettes in and you are good to go.