First timer looking for a smoker

We just finished moving into our new house where we have room for more toys. I've been drooling over the "Who's smoking meat this weekend?" thread since I joined, so a smoker is in order

I've not done any smoking before of any kind, so this is all new to me. I'm trying to ultimately decide what type of smoker to go for. I'm leaning towards electric or gas for my first go since it seems to be easier and more "set it and forget it" than wood/charcoal.

I've got a few general questions/concerns:
1) Will electric or gas give me the same crispiness as wood or charcoal? If not can I just finish it in the oven and achieve roughly the same thing?
2) Will I be sacrificing a huge amount of smoky flavor with electric/gas over wood/charcoal?
3) Can I get/maintain low temperatures if need be with electric/gas? (smoked cheese might be in my future)
4) Is cleanup easier with one setup versus another?
5) Does a gas smoker use up an insane amount of propane or is it fairly reasonable?
6) What option is the most cost efficient on a per use basis?

I don't plan on using it more than once every two weeks or so if that matters. I live near Columbia SC so it's almost always extremely hot and humid.

Thanks all

I know you said you don't want charcoal, but I bought one of these and love it.

I also bought a book called "Low & Slow: Master the Art of Barbecue in 5 Easy Lessons". [edit] The book is about smoking with charcoal. He describes how to smoke with a Weber Smokey Mountain, an offset smoker, and a kettle smoker. I follow the steps for the WSM, even though it's not. [/edit]

Not sure if this helps, but I've been happy with my purchases. Good luck.

I've got an offset smoker for $20 at a yard sale. charcoal. it's almost set and forget. at the point where I can get it up to and keep temp for 3 hours, along with adding some wood once an hour for smoke

so, all my meats are only 3 hours in the smoker, then finish up in the oven.

pork butts are friggin' torture, filling the house with delicious smell for up to 8 hours and lingering for days.

I recently bought an electric smoker and love it. I find I get better results with the electric smoker than with my old charcoal one.

1) Will electric or gas give me the same crispiness as wood or charcoal? If not can I just finish it in the oven and achieve roughly the same thing? I can set the temperature to whatever I want and I check it about once an hour to add wood chips.
2) Will I be sacrificing a huge amount of smoky flavor with electric/gas over wood/charcoal? I find that I get better smoke flavor. It’s really hard to over smoke in an electric smoker.
3) Can I get/maintain low temperatures if need be with electric/gas? (smoked cheese might be in my future) To cold smoke cheese or fish you’ll want a side smoker. It creates the smoke and pumps it into the smoker. So you get all the smoke and none of the heat.
4) Is cleanup easier with one setup versus another? It only takes a few minutes to clean the bottom pan and the water container.
5) Does a gas smoker use up an insane amount of propane or is it fairly reasonable? I’m not sure about this.
6) What option is the most cost efficient on a per use basis? Electricity is cheaper than propane. Plus you’ll never run out energy in the middle of smoking, unless you forget to pay the bill. :cross:

First off how much do you want to spend? That will tell me what smoker to recommend. I have cooked on just about all of them. From a Brinkman to a custom Klose. Once you set a budget I can give you recommendations based on that price range.

Mark

I have a Masterbuilt Electric Smoker and a Big Green Egg. I LOVE my Egg. It is much more "Set it and forget it" once you learn the temp control (very easy). Also, you can use it as a grill or oven! I'd recommend taking a look at an Egg.

I built a UDS (Ugly Drum Smoker) and love it! I use it almost every week, I have found hardwood charcoal works much better and burns much longer than the briquettes do. I have about $50 invested and would recommend them to anyone.

It also depends on how many people you're planning to cook for. If it's just a small group, I think you could get away with a smaller smoker. I recently purchased a WSM with no smoking experience, and I've really enjoyed using it. The WSM is very easy to use and I had no experience with charcoal. Many people seem pleased with the 14.5" WSM if they're looking for a small smoker.

I've got the WSM and use an Auber PID on it. It's so cool. I set it at 225F Saturday night, went to bed, and in the morning it was reading 224F.

Here's the one I bought from Lowe's 4 years ago.

Sits outside uncovered year round and has shown no signs of wear or rust.

Uses very little propane.

Ignitor still works great.

Several vents that adjust to damp the fresh air and control the temperature.

4 adjustable racks. I've cooked ribs, fish, chicken, rump roasts, brisket etc all with great smoke flavor (growing up in KC I'm a bit of a BBQ snob)

This is the easiest setup for me. Literally just dump in your soaked wood chips, get the flame to low and walk away. Come back in about 2 hours and toss in more wood chips.

I looked at the offset, wood burning styles, but a brother in law of mine said it was anything but "set and forget". Plus, I didn't want to have always have an ample supply of smoke-worthy firewood on hand.

For $179(ish), it has made smoking meats a breeze.

Great thread. I too have been looking at getting into smoking, but as a total noob I'm a bit lost at where to begin. This is very helpful.

Now here's a banana -->

A few more pics of the unit at work last Fathers Day.

BierMuncher said:

Here's the one I bought from Lowe's 4 years ago.

Sits outside uncovered year round and has shown no signs of wear or rust.

Uses very little propane.

Ignitor still works great.

Several vents that adjust to damp the fresh air and control the temperature.

4 adjustable racks. I've cooked ribs, fish, chicken, rump roasts, brisket etc all with great smoke flavor (growing up in KC I'm a bit of a BBQ snob)

This is the easiest setup for me. Literally just dump in your soaked wood chips, get the flame to low and walk away. Come back in about 2 hours and toss in more wood chips.

I looked at the offset, wood burning styles, but a brother in law of mine said it was anything but "set and forget". Plus, I didn't want to have always have an ample supply of smoke-worthy firewood on hand.

For $179(ish), it has made smoking meats a breeze.

View attachment 204725

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I got nearly the same one, this one was from Home Depot though. I selected the Dual fuel Propane/charcoal smoker. I love it. Again this is something you can really load things in to. You can take it camping if you want or are out of propane from brewing for example you can still start a fire in it and keep it going with charcoal. It is very controllable, and easy to work with.


http://www.homedepot.com/p/Masterbu...opane-Gas-Dual-Fuel-Smoker-20050412/202904343

One of my brew buddies kindly gave me his old (and well used) Masterbuilt electric smoker last year after his wife got him a new one for Fathers Day. I love the simplicity of use and the consistency of thermostatically controlled temperature.

My baby back ribs are consistently better with the electric than they were with my old charcoal unit and the brisket is every bit as good. It's quite easy to control the level of smoke flavor. The ribs get rubbed, smoked, wrapped and then finished on the grill. Spraying them with a 75/25 mix of beer and apple cider vinegar every 40-45 min helps too.

I didn't read the whole thread, but I've done lots of barbecue over the last 20 years. It's like brewing beer, where do you want to start, how much money do you have, how much room do you have. How much time do you want to spend with it. It's a lot of fun. Today their is definitely a lot of options. Good luck and drink some homebrew while smoking some meat.

I got a Masterbuilt 2-door from HD. Love it, makes awesome BBQ, smokey, pink meat- I lived in the South a decade, this makes BBQ better than some restaurants I've enjoyed. I can do tons of meat 40+ lbs. in a batch.

However, if I were to do it again, I would consider electric. Doing large pork shoulders / butts takes many hours to get to "pulling" temps. With propane, I don't like to leave it unsupervised, I would do that with electric.

Smoker selection is kinda like brew pot (SS or aluminum), bucket or carboy, liquid or dry yeast....

They all work. Depends what you want and what you're comfortable with. That said, I love my WSM.

If you like to baby your smoker and fiddle with stuff while it is cooking; A stick burner can be lots of fun. I got a Pitts and Spitts http://www.pittsandspitts.com/ on craigslist for $350. 3 cooks in and I'm starting to get the hang of fire managment to control temperature. Taste is better over charcoal depending on what wood you use imo.

Wow thanks for the replies! I've got a lot to consider...

I was looking to spend somewhere in the 200 range. I don't need a top of the line one but I also don't want something that we will "outgrow" soon. Right now it's just wife and I, but I expect most of its use will be when we have people over or when we're looking for freezer meals. Space is pretty limited on our deck, so one that has levels (as opposed to side by sides) would be best. I enjoy cooking but I don't think I'll be able to dedicate enough time to it to consider smoking a hobby in its own right.

Obsidian I like the idea of having the option of propane and charcoal with your setup. I did a bit more research and it looks like most people get about 20-35 hours of smoking with a propane tank, which is what...2-3 smokes? Of course with that option I don't need to use propane all the time.

I have used the Cabelas premium electric smoker for 15 years. It's a charcoal/wood chip smoker with electric heating element to light the charcoal and maintain temperature. Cheap, compact, simple to use and has excellent control.

Note - on this one, if an extension cord is needed, it needs to be a heavy duty cord.

I got myself a WSM this past fall. I love it. I have found that the lump charcoal burns less consistently for me (personal opinion) than kingsford competition from costco but I can get it dialed into a temp and it will hold there for hours. My biggest suggestion is if you go charcoal or for a stick burner (I have no experience with these though) get yourself a decent thermometer like the Maverick so that you can tell your meat temp as well as smoker temperature so you do not have to open the smoker up all the time. How does that saying go "If you are looking, you ain't cooking" holds pretty true.

When you buy yourself a smoker you are going to be mad at yourself for not having gotten one sooner. I found amazingribs.com to be a good resource as well as what I have read here.

I have a Weber smokey mountain also. It will hold temp for hours on end, I've done several overnight cooks without adding more charcoal.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I've about decided to go with Obsidian's recommendation (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Masterbu...l-Fuel-Smoker-20050412/202904343?N=5yc1vZbx92). The reviews are stellar and I love the fact that it's built for charcoal and propane. The price seems more than reasonable too.

Should I pick up a thermometer for inside of the smoker too? My understanding is that the one in the door isn't always accurate.

Cheesy_Goodness said:

Thanks for the advice everyone.

I've about decided to go with Obsidian's recommendation (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Masterbu...l-Fuel-Smoker-20050412/202904343?N=5yc1vZbx92). The reviews are stellar and I love the fact that it's built for charcoal and propane. The price seems more than reasonable too.

Should I pick up a thermometer for inside of the smoker too? My understanding is that the one in the door isn't always accurate.

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Good choice.

Definitely want to get a decent probe thermometer. I just grabbed an older one from the brewshop. This one has an alarm that goes off if the temp gets to high that I can hear from inside my kitchen where I'm probably rustling up some baked beans or german potato salad.

I got the Maverick ET-732. It has a base that has a meat and grill probe and a wireless receiver that you can carry with you. Program in your alert temps (food done temp as well as smoker probe tolerance temps both high and low) and you will have an alarm go off if you go outside that range. Very nice.

You also mentioned you want to smoke cheese. It's very difficult to get your temps low enough to do that and produce smoke at the same time. Enter the A-Maze-N-Pellet-Smoker. AMZN for short. it's like having both a side box for cold smoking, and a 12 hour pellet feeder that only the more expensive electric smokers feature. I was never happy getting up every 30-45 minutes to add more wood chips to me MES30. This solved that problem. Want to start smoking a 16-hour 12lb pork butt the night before for a party the next day...this is the key to doing that. I couldn't be happier with mine.

I just have to throw this in. My inlaws just bought me this for Father's Day. I just hope I have time to put this monster together. Smoker/charcoal grill/gas grill/infrared burner. I am by no means a great cook but I have fun trying


I'm not sure if my the flavors in my beer are off or complex 😳

Well I picked her up yesterday. Super excited for my first smoke this weekend :rockin:

I'm going to hold off on getting a nice thermometer for now and just stick with an instant read when enough time has passed and go from there.

I looked into those side by side models but our deck would be a bit crowded so I went with a tower.

Thanks again for the advice guys. I'll be sure to post some pics of the Boston Butt we smoke this weekend.

Cheesy_Goodness said:

Well I picked her up yesterday. Super excited for my first smoke this weekend :rockin:

I'm going to hold off on getting a nice thermometer for now and just stick with an instant read when enough time has passed and go from there.

I looked into those side by side models but our deck would be a bit crowded so I went with a tower.

Thanks again for the advice guys. I'll be sure to post some pics of the Boston Butt we smoke this weekend.

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Which bullet did you go with?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

brewbama said:

Which bullet did you go with?

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https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f172/first-timer-looking-smoker-478448/index2.html#post6185010

Well we had the inaugural smoke this weekend and everything tasted amazing. 1 Boston butt, a rack of ribs, ABTs, and some smoked potatoes.

I had a hard time getting the chips to smoke at a reasonable rate until I added an old pie pan on top of the burner. The place they provided for the chips must not have been heating uniformly but the pie pan solved that very quickly. I'm going to keep an eye out for a cheap-o cast iron skillet to toss in there eventually, but for now the pie pan works just fine.

My only real problem I ran into was cooking the potatoes. Sweet potatoes got 2 hours in foil, and the smaller baking potatoes got a little over an hour. Some were cooked perfectly, some weren't even close to done, so I probably have to play with the height more. I didn't notice any real flavor difference between smoked and regular baked potatoes so I doubt I'll try it again but it was still a good learning experience.

Now to find more tender vittles to smoke up...

Cheesy_Goodness said:

Well we had the inaugural smoke this weekend and everything tasted amazing. 1 Boston butt, a rack of ribs, ABTs, and some smoked potatoes.

I had a hard time getting the chips to smoke at a reasonable rate until I added an old pie pan on top of the burner. The place they provided for the chips must not have been heating uniformly but the pie pan solved that very quickly. I'm going to keep an eye out for a cheap-o cast iron skillet to toss in there eventually, but for now the pie pan works just fine.

My only real problem I ran into was cooking the potatoes. Sweet potatoes got 2 hours in foil, and the smaller baking potatoes got a little over an hour. Some were cooked perfectly, some weren't even close to done, so I probably have to play with the height more. I didn't notice any real flavor difference between smoked and regular baked potatoes so I doubt I'll try it again but it was still a good learning experience.

Now to find more tender vittles to smoke up...

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pics!

Cheesy_Goodness said:

Well we had the inaugural smoke this weekend and everything tasted amazing. 1 Boston butt, a rack of ribs, ABTs, and some smoked potatoes.

I had a hard time getting the chips to smoke at a reasonable rate until I added an old pie pan on top of the burner. The place they provided for the chips must not have been heating uniformly but the pie pan solved that very quickly. I'm going to keep an eye out for a cheap-o cast iron skillet to toss in there eventually, but for now the pie pan works just fine.

My only real problem I ran into was cooking the potatoes. Sweet potatoes got 2 hours in foil, and the smaller baking potatoes got a little over an hour. Some were cooked perfectly, some weren't even close to done, so I probably have to play with the height more. I didn't notice any real flavor difference between smoked and regular baked potatoes so I doubt I'll try it again but it was still a good learning experience.

Now to find more tender vittles to smoke up...

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Glad to hear it went well. You may not have noticed a difference in taste but why fire up another heat source just for the potatoes?

I've used a Traeger Junior Elite in the past after smoking on a WSM with a BBQ Guru DigiQ, I immediately sold my Traeger for a WSM and upgraded to a BBQ Guru DigiQ DX2. They have since come out with a CyberQ WiFi which I am eyeing but I will wait for my DigiQ DX2 to die before I pull the trigger. I may be waiting a while since these DigiQ's area pretty solid product.

GrogNerd said:

I've got an offset smoker for $20 at a yard sale. charcoal. it's almost set and forget. at the point where I can get it up to and keep temp for 3 hours, along with adding some wood once an hour for smoke

so, all my meats are only 3 hours in the smoker, then finish up in the oven.

pork butts are friggin' torture, filling the house with delicious smell for up to 8 hours and lingering for days.

View attachment 204716

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My smoker grill is identical to this one. I've even smoked malt on this. I'm an old fashioned "charcoal or wood only" kind of outdoor chef. This unit has suited my needs well. There are better smokers for certain. However, this thing has done everything I've ever wanted done well enough to make me happy. Which reminds me, tomorrow the sockeye salmon will be seeing some slow smoking along with a nice portion of pork ribs.

BrewerBear said:

Glad to hear it went well. You may not have noticed a difference in taste but why fire up another heat source just for the potatoes?

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Just to make sure they're done

It was pretty odd though. I had two sweet potatoes that got 2 hours and a bunch of baking potatoes that got a bit more than an hour. Maybe 2 of the baking potatoes were done, the rest might as well have been raw. Same with the sweet potatoes, one was cooked perfectly, the other seemed to be raw. All were coated with olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper, and wrapped in foil.
I figured there would be a temp difference between racks but it seemed to be more drastic than I accounted for.

Pics of leftovers won't be as sexy but I'll try to snag a few before they get gone

Chadwick can I ask your process for smoking malt? Might be interested in giving that a go next time I brew up a barleywine.

Cheesy_Goodness said:

Just to make sure they're done

It was pretty odd though. I had two sweet potatoes that got 2 hours and a bunch of baking potatoes that got a bit more than an hour. Maybe 2 of the baking potatoes were done, the rest might as well have been raw. Same with the sweet potatoes, one was cooked perfectly, the other seemed to be raw. All were coated with olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper, and wrapped in foil.
I figured there would be a temp difference between racks but it seemed to be more drastic than I accounted for.

Pics of leftovers won't be as sexy but I'll try to snag a few before they get gone

Chadwick can I ask your process for smoking malt? Might be interested in giving that a go next time I brew up a barleywine.

Click to expand...

What I do is put the potatoes whole in a pot of cool water and bring to a boil for five minutes to get them started cooking,then I usually cut them into quarters,pat them dry and season them and toss them on the grill. I've done the same and put them on whole instead of cutting them.

http://amazingribs.com/bbq_equipment_reviews_ratings/reviews_ratings


...and this is just the equipment reviews section