Smoker

[harvey lee]

I am looking at getting a new smoker. I have a gas one but thought about an electric one for a more even controlled heat.

Which way is the best for fuel for a smoker and then what brand would be a better one.

I would be using this smoker for smaller items like turkey, BBQ ribs, salmon and some venison.

Thanks

[reinhard1]

Harvey, i would get the Masterbuilt 40 inch electric smoker. it is all digital and programable. the best price i have seen is at Sam's for $299. this is what i'm getting and soon. cant wait to put it to work. good luck.

[dirtking]

I have the 30" and have no complaints

[leech~~]

I have a Brinkmann which is electric and it works pretty nice as you can load it up and let it go. The only issue with some electric ones like mine is there is no way to control the temp it's on or off. So, you have to do some adjusting on the racks and or adding water to the pan to adjust the heat level.

[hockeybc69]

I had a masterbuilt 30" and used the [PoorWordUsage] out of it for 3 years.... It ended up shorting out.

It served a great purpose for what I needed to do. Just disappointed it didnt last all that long. but for the money I paid,,,,, its probably all I should have expected it to last. Especially for the amount of use I got out of it.

[KEN W]

I have a Cajun Injector Electric.I believe they bought out Masterbuilt.Looks exactly the same.This is my second one.Used the first one many many times.Eventually rusted out the element.

I have always liked the looks of the Bradley.But you have to use their wood pucks.A pain.When there is lots of free wood around.I get mine from a cabinet maker who uses cherry and hickory.He saves scraps.

My experience with propane is that is is difficult to get low enough temps to smoke sausages.

I have the 30 inch and it is large enough to have 4 racks to use.

[kingr]

I've got the 40" Stainless Masterbuilt. I love it so far since April. Easy to use. For smoking in the summer I bought the "amiznsmoker" since it's hard to get enought smoke in the summer due to the higher heat.

[harvey lee]

Harvey, i would get the Masterbuilt 40 inch electric smoker. it is all digital and programable. the best price i have seen is at Sam's for $299. this is what i'm getting and soon. cant wait to put it to work. good luck.

I was at Sam's Sunday and stopped and looked at that model.

[reinhard1]

i'm going to get into more and more of smoked sausage, and a lot will have different add on's. also i'm doing stuff for neighbors and friends and family. so i want to make sure that the smoking proccess goes well. i'm condfident this smoker will do it for me for the amounts i do. i dont do large batches [25 to 30 lbs largest]. i also have heard good comments here on the threads here from our fellow smokers. good luck.

[Alagnak]

I have a propane (forget the brand) but can't quite get a full 25 pound batch of sausage in there without it being too tight. Also, most sausage smokes are low temp 200-225 or less so I just built a new plywood model (based off of a fine fellow who posted here on FM) and ordered an electric element with thermostat. This way I can low-temp smoke sausages and other things but if I do turkeys, chicken, ribs or whatever where you might want to kick up the heat to finish it off then I will still be using the propane one for those items.

It drives me nuts because 'most' propane smokers you can't get low enough unless it's in the middle of winter. So, it also depends on what a guy needs his for. I have $70 in the electric element, thermostat control, and chip pan and had the plywood laying around so it doesn't get much cheaper than that.

It sure is fun and tasty though!

[reinhard1]

well, kudo's to you for building that smokehouse as you stated. i saw that smokehouse myself and it gave me the idea of building one myself. my wife laughed when i told her of my mission and reminded me of the dog house that i once built. so on second thought i chose to go the Masterbuilt route. i thought the guy did a great job and he showed proof of some tasty stuff for all his efforts. i'm sure you will do fine with yours. there is a sense of pride in doing one's own projets. good luck.

[Farley]

I have the Bradley Electric smoker and if I was to get another one, I'd definetly get the programable thermostat model. One thing about Bradleys though is you have to use the bisquetts (woodchip pucks), and they are $20 per small box (you get roughly 2-3 smokes out of a $20 box) and only sold at certian stores. One thing that might be nice is being able to use a variety of fuel, wheather its chips, chunks or even sawdust.

I've heard only good things about Masterbuilt (known as a MES on smoking forums), I dont think you can go wrong there.

[bak2MN]

I have the bradley 5 tray model with the programable auto feeder. I have now mad my salamis, sticks, beef ribs, and getting ready to do some salmon. For only having it for a month or so and the little I have used it I am pretty happy with it.

[Jigging Joe]

Harvey, i would get the Masterbuilt 40 inch electric smoker. it is all digital and programable. the best price i have seen is at Sam's for $299. this is what i'm getting and soon. cant wait to put it to work. good luck.

I bought one of these units from sams about a month ago. So far I've made venison bacon and ribs. I really like that you can set the temp and walk away, very easy!! It also has a remote and a meat probe, so you can be in the house and easily see where your smoker temp and meat temp is at. I definatly like it so far, specially for a newbie like me.

The one thing I dont like about the unit is when smoking at low temps you dont get enough smoke, from what I have read this is a problem with all electric smokers. You need the element to be on to apply heat to the wood chips so they smoke, with this unit it is well insulated and keeps the temp very consistant so the element is not on alot especially with low temps. An easy fix is to add an external smoker such as the smoke daddy, costs about 100 and is easily installed. I plan on doing some sticks and summer sausage where the smoking temps are low, 150 or so, I dont think I will get the smoking results I'm looking for without the external unit. As far as ribs go, I smoked this weekend at 235 and with the colder weather the element was on alot and gave me good results!!

[DaMoose]

I have the bradley. Next one will be a bradley with the digital read out and temp settings. One thing I like about it is that the heating element and the smoke element are on different controls. So for low heat all you have to do is turn on the smoke element and leave the heat element off.

[1johntimm]

What I found out with my new Smoke vault propane smoker is that you can drop the temp by turning the propane tank valve down very slowly and watch the flame slowly drop while your almost turning it off. Works for me as my smoker keeps it at 200-250 on low, but I can drop it down to 150 or so by doing this.

[reinhard1]

for summer or sticks i would recommend a temp of 175 to 190. you should have an internal temp of 163 to be on the safe side. good luck.

[rocstar]

I tried a Bradley this past weekend for a batch of summer sausage and sticks and the auto-feed worked nice, however, it was cold outside with a fair wind. The summer sausage were hung towards the back of the smoker and it seems like the bottom ends of the sausages were overcooked. My thought is the heating element on the lower back wall was working overtime to keep the smoker temp up and thus the meat closest to it got a little too hot. Have any of you experienced this same problem?

Maybe next time we should just try the racks or consider hanging some type of heat sheald towards the back. Any thoughts?

[leech~~]

So far I've made venison bacon

How's that?

[hockeybc69]

Venison bacon rocks.

Its not bacon as you know it though....

Its more like a meatloaf to be honest. You mix venison and pork and use a bacon seasoning. Stuff it in a meat loaf pan and smoke it.

When its done, run it through a meat slicer, package and freeze.

Too cook it, you donnt fry it like bacon and make it crispy. You more or less warm it.

I use a little butter in a pan, warm it to the point where its just about to brown.

FANTASTIC ON BLT SAMMIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bak2MN]

When I did mine I used the racks. It was colder out and wind blowing as well. What I did was rotated my racks around so they didnt get to done in one spot. But I am new to this so take my info with a grain of salt!

[KEN W]

My Masterbuilt smoker has a hot area in the back right corner.And it affects all 4 racks.With or without water pan.Either I have to watch that corner or don't put any meat there.

[OnAFly]

That's good to know. I'll have to watch my masterbuilt if I do temp sensitive stuff like sausage or sticks.

To alleviate the wind issue (and cold too), I will use my garbage/recycle bins, a tarp and a couple old hockey sticks to make a nice little tent for my smoker. This way the temp around the smoker is a bit higher and definitely more consistent without the wind. I do get odd looks from the neighbors when I'm crawling out of a tarp tent with smoke billowing out of it

[delcecchi]

That's good to know. I'll have to watch my masterbuilt if I do temp sensitive stuff like sausage or sticks.

To alleviate the wind issue (and cold too), I will use my garbage/recycle bins, a tarp and a couple old hockey sticks to make a nice little tent for my smoker. This way the temp around the smoker is a bit higher and definitely more consistent without the wind. I do get odd looks from the neighbors when I'm crawling out of a tarp tent with smoke billowing out of it

Sounds like a scene from a cheech and chong movie.

[reinhard1]

ect. good luck.