Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Need a new meat smoker

My current meat smoker is propane and extremely difficult to regulate the temperature since it is also insulated.

I am looking at either a electric Masterbuilt or Bradley.

Thoughts?

I have an electric single walled masterbuilt. Has a 1500 watt element. I can't always cook with it on the cold days of winter, but you can still use it to smoke and finish cooking in the oven. A load of chips lasts 2-3 hours. Filling the smoke box sucks, but it's manageable.

Have you tried installing a propane inline needle valve ?

Electricity and propane fuel cars and cities. Wood and hardwood lump charcoal fuel smokers. Even pellet smokers are better than electric or propane and they are very easy to regulate. Only problem with the pellets is it's tough to get much smoke into the meat.

Mike

The gas jobs with chunks of preferred hardwoods turn out some mighty fine eats. A pard of mine has a MB gasser that turns out ribs to die for.

No, but I think I am on a dead end with the smoker due to the uninsulated walls. After owning it for about 10 years am frustrated because I cant seem to smoke anything at low temps and wild temperature swings. It seems like time to upgrade and electric seems like a good choice because where we live in Colorado is almost constant wind and I find myself always having to relight the burner. Grrrrrrrr

Seems to me, you almost need one for winter and one for summer. In the winter, you have trouble keeping the temps up, at least if you want to cook in it. In the summer, you don't get as much smoke. You need to insulate it in the winter and leave it uninsulated in the summer or you need a separate burner under the smoke box so that you can shut off the other side of it when it's warm out so that you get enough smoke. I've only run mine and the big chief that my parents have, but I'd expect that from anything that doesn't have an external smoke box.

Electric works fine for me I have a master built 40

Also plan on buying an external smoke box so I can cold smoke for hours.

I do have an a-maze pellet smoke tray for my electric smoker

http://www.amazenproducts.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=AMNPS5X8

I have the 5x8 tray for the smoker and the 12" tube for the grill.

Pure folly and hokum. Disregard such nonsense. Mine and the other propane smokers use wood chunks that we convert into hardwood lump coals that produce the same smoke with propane as the ignition source. Large chunks of wood smoking meats are the same regardless of the ignition source. I use large chunks of apple and hickory and maple and pecan. The wood is consumed and converted into smoke and heat and along with the propane does nothing different than a smoker using the same woods started with a propane torch or lighter fluid or whatever ignition source they choose to get the hardwood chunk coals to smoke.

Some here over think what is a very old method of cooking that is not rocket science. 200F is 200F and apple wood smoke is apple wood smoke regardless of how it was ignited.

For me it's how cooking low and slow gives all the cartilidge time to dissolve. The taste is completely different.

I put ribs in at 275 with good hickory smoke for 3 hours, them finish them for another 4-5 hours in the stove Ito the point the bones are just starting to crack the meat. Of course I have a few other tricks I'm not sharing, if you live in Kansas City long enough you end up with a few BBQ competitor friends....all good.

on the why not go wood - I like doing a brisket every once and a while, but to get the internal temp up to 190 or so degrees without boiling all the water out you have to keep the temp under 212, With a wood smoker that means you sacrifice a goo half day of your life. That is unless you have a high dollar smoker with thick steel walls and great insulation.

Riged foam insulation board and throw a blanket over the whole works. Try a good inline needle valve as well.

Worth a try and cheaper than another smoker. JMHO

I use a homemade external smoke generator with an insulated propane smoker, works for me.

Go to this site. There's a ton of folks over there that have fixed your problem.

Join & ask.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/129949/my-masterbuilt-gasser-mods

I use a Bradley smoke generator in my smoker and it works great. The walls on my smoker aren't insulated and it works great for smoking meat, fish and poultry. Check out the Bradley forums for info on the Bradley units and smoking meats.

Here are outstanding instruction on how to build a hot and cold smoker. :grin;

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/8839810/1

Charcoal and hardwood.


Travis

I took the easy way out and bought a Masterbuilt 40 inch model with a glass door. Wal-Mart has them on sale so will give it a go. Nice thing about Wal-Mart is they will take anything back as long as you have the receipt if you don't like it.

How do you like using this with your Masterbuilt 40? Do you just fill it with pellets, light it, and set it inside your smoker? Is it used mostly for cold smoking?