A-maze-N-Smoker Tutorial

The Cen-Tex Smoker

I've had good luck with the AMS but have noticed lots of people saying it goes out or they have to season the pellets in the oven to keep it lit. So here is how it's worked for me. Hopefully it will work for you the same way.

Step 1) fill it up with pellets and light it on fire. I only had my weed burner handy (It was a bit of overkill). A propane/MAP torch is preferred.



Once it gets going, I let it burn for 5-10 minutes. It looks like this:





After about 5 minutes it looked like this:



I usually have to blow it out at this point but this one went out at 5 min 38 seconds. As long as it's 2-3" in and has a good bed of coals going, I'm good with that:



If I have lump in the box, i push it toward the edges to expose air holes for flow. Then I put my small cast iron grid in the bed so there is no chance of igniting the lump:










Once it's in, I add my AR and oval stone and I have never had one go out. It smokes for about 12 hours.








Hope this helps. I did it all on my iPhone so I'm sure a the photos will be sideways or upside down. Hope you get the drift anyhow.

Bacon for breakfast tomorrow .

henapple

No wonder... @Mickey told me to soak the pellets overnight. :-@

Skiddymarker

Only a bit of overkill with the weed burner, ya think? Good advice. Son has one he uses for cold smoke in a an old Masterbuilt electric that is not electric anymore. 

caliking

Stop it already. I already used up my holiday points with SWMBO to get the SV demi. Now you go and plant this in my brain. Curses!

Wait... she needs a Hanukkah gift... bookmarked.

caliking

Quick question - that's a large egg, right?

The Cen-Tex Smoker

caliking said:

Quick question - that's a large egg, right?

Yep. Large egg. The AMS is only $40. Really cheap to turn your egg into a cold smoker. You can probably mod one for $10 and 50 hrs labor )

Mickey

henapple said:

No wonder... @Mickey told me to soak the pellets overnight. :-@

No Sir, what I said was to soak your Egg in water for 30 min's before using.

DMW

Thanks for the tutorial. I'm planning to order one. Do you find that pellets work better than dust?

caliking

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Yep. Large egg. The AMS is only $40. Really cheap to turn your egg into a cold smoker. You can probably mod one for $10 and 50 hrs labor )

You know me too well $50 is my limit - then I bust out the aluminium flat bar and mad bending skills. Luckily, Amazon has this. There is a good chance I could sneak this in to the garage and it would blend in. She still hasn't found the second big azz comal i bought a while ago

What else does one do with one of these? I'm guessing cheese and fish. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

DMW said:

Thanks for the tutorial. I'm planning to order one. Do you find that pellets work better than dust?

Never tried the dust. I bought this size to use the pellets. I use traeger pellets and they work great.

Eggcelsior

caliking said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Yep. Large egg. The AMS is only $40. Really cheap to turn your egg into a cold smoker. You can probably mod one for $10 and 50 hrs labor )

You know me too well $50 is my limit - then I bust out the aluminium flat bar and mad bending skills. Luckily, Amazon has this. There is a good chance I could sneak this in to the garage and it would blend in. She still hasn't found the second big azz comal i bought a while ago

What else does one do with one of these? I'm guessing cheese and fish. 

Neighbor's yappy dog?

Little Steven

Sausages! I like sausages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sON0He2mTC8

The Cen-Tex Smoker

2 hrs in and going strong with no added heat.

henapple

Mickey said:

henapple said:

No wonder... @Mickey told me to soak the pellets overnight. :-@

No Sir, what I said was to soak your Egg in water for 30 min's before using.

Ugh... My bad.

caliking

Eggcelsior said:

Neighbor's yappy dog?

Neighbor's dogs are actually pretty well behaved. Other neighbor feeds a few feral cats and now they have taken to pooping in our front flower beds. I would love to do something incendiary to those felines...

Hibby

Which specific size is that smoker? And is your egg a large? Thanks for the post - very informative. Looking forward to getting one myself.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

It's the biggest AMS and my egg is a large.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

4 hrs in. Trucking along.

caliking

Riding the night train? 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

caliking said:

Riding the night train? 

Always.

Griffin

=D> Great tutorial. It's on my wish list.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Here it is at 7:30 am. I suspect it finished between 5 and 6 as I usually get about 12 hrs out of it.

caliking

Lookin good. 

How big is the one you have? The one on Amazon says its 5"x8". Sounds kinda small, but then it wouldn't be the first time that the description on Amazon has been wrong.

http://www.amazon.com/A-maze-n-Pellet-Smoker/dp/B007ROPJ1M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384218159&sr=8-1&keywords=amaze+n+smoker

henapple

@Caliking... That's what I bought... Last forever

caliking

The 5"x8" one holds enough pellets for a 10-12hr smoke? Cool. It's on the list then. SWMBO is gonna love her Hanukkah gift.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Yep- the 5x8". i've gone as long as 14 hours with pellets. averages around 12. For $40 it's a great tool to have for your egg. You could even use it in that old gasser or upside down flowerpot you may have lying around. turns anything into a smoker

JRWhitee

Thanks @Cen-Tex this is on my Christmas list. As for the photo's, I use my iphone as well, I hold it sideways with the flash/lenz on the top left and my photo's always come out right side up and never sideways. Give it a try.

billyray

@ DMW I have the same one as CT and have used both pellets and dust. The pellets seem to burn hotter than the dust. I grind up my pellets in an old electric coffee grinder, when I want dust. It's cheaper than buying dust by inself.

caliking

One more question - which brand pellets have you found to work the best? May as well order those at the same time. Its getting cooler down here, so I may tr to smoke some cheese.

billyray

Traeger has a good variety of different woods, but they're packaged in 20 lb. bags. Still it is way cheaper than buying the small sizes from some of the smoking web sites on a per ounce basis.

BizGreenEgg

I just ordered one of these from their site with the coupon code VETSDAY2013 and got 20% off. It said it went thru 11/11 but still worked for me.