Rocketman
Member
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2020
- Messages
- 24
I'd like to volunteer my $0.02 worth, as I have been through a lot of smokers in my life. In my humble opinion, it depends entirely on what you want to do with it, i.e. cook-n-smoke foods to be eaten on the spot or make smoked foods for preservation. Many options have already been mentioned that do one or the other or both. I'm not too particular on the tools to use for smoked foods like brisket, etc., but for food preservation the only sensible choice is electric with good temp control. Gives you maximum control for final moisture content and strength of smoke flavor/content. I would also add that in general for any purpose, the bigger the better. Gives the best and most even temp control. I would buy the biggest one of whatever it is that I can afford. I started 40 years ago with a Luhr-Jensen Little Chief for smoking fish, and quickly found that I needed to play all sorts of tricks with it to get decent results. Big Chief was easier. I've been through several of each of those and wore them out. In those days my objective was only food preservation. When I started smoking food for cooking, I tried a number of different ones including the Weber barrel-type charcoal fired with the water pan. Used to do entire turkeys that way. They work, but require a fair amount of attention throughout the process.
What have I settled on after all these years? A Masterbilt Electric cabinet type with meat probe and feedback temp control. They keep the temp the way you want it regardless of the heat added by the slow combustion of the chips (or not). You never have to open them to add wood chips, and they can be used with or without water pan for cooking or for just dry smoking. Also the temp is unaffected by wind conditions, etc, because it is a closed cabinet kind of like a fridge. That is a real plus in my view. I use it for smoking fish, fowl etc for preservation(dry) and also for cooking smoked foods like ribs and brisket. Really hard to screw anything up with one of these, and well worth the investment. They also last a long time. I am still on my first one and have had it for 10 years.
What will I change when I wear this one out? Same thing except a bigger model.
Happy smoking all!
What have I settled on after all these years? A Masterbilt Electric cabinet type with meat probe and feedback temp control. They keep the temp the way you want it regardless of the heat added by the slow combustion of the chips (or not). You never have to open them to add wood chips, and they can be used with or without water pan for cooking or for just dry smoking. Also the temp is unaffected by wind conditions, etc, because it is a closed cabinet kind of like a fridge. That is a real plus in my view. I use it for smoking fish, fowl etc for preservation(dry) and also for cooking smoked foods like ribs and brisket. Really hard to screw anything up with one of these, and well worth the investment. They also last a long time. I am still on my first one and have had it for 10 years.
What will I change when I wear this one out? Same thing except a bigger model.
Happy smoking all!
