Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Anyone have an electric smoker?

I been looking at some black Friday ads for a cheap electric smoker. I've never smoked anything before and believe this would be a good start. Has anyone had experience with one of these electric smokers? What model do you have?

I have never had a smokerthat wasn't electric. My current smokeris a Cajun Injector double door. My only issue with it is that in the warm month(s) here in Minnesota the only time the heater gets hot enough to make it smoke well is initial start up. I have to open both doors and leave them open long enough to cool it down a lot befor I get good heat to get a new batch of chips smoking. I use a cardboard box on top when I want to have a cold smoke, there is no other way to accomplish that with this unit.

See the electric/propane smoker thread, about 3 below this.

It's about six below now.....hurry before you have to go to the trouble of clicking page two.

I saw that thread, really looking for product testimonials for the electric smokers in the cheaper range.

Limit smoke time to maybe 1/4 of cook time.
You get different flavors from electric or burning wood.
Electric smolders wood, with no oxygen, actually making charcoal.
If you get too much smoke, it will taste funny.

I could cook but to for 8 hours over wood. The smoke was strong, but it tasted right.
Electric smoke can tasted like wood some does if you don't supply enough air.
It gets a sooty, acrid taste. It actually gives the impression of hot peppers, but in a weird way.

For ease and simplicity, electric is tops.

Results can be quite good, but never the best.

I have an early model, about 20 years old. Basic round model. No bells and whistles.You put a tray of soaked wood chips on the burner on the bottom. Add water pan to the rack above it, unless you want drier meat.There are two round racks for the meat. Put the cap on and plug it in.I have done turkey,chicken, venison, salmon. sausage. I did our turkey yesterday.

I added two digital thermometers ( About $14 each at Walmart) that have a 3 foot lead on them. I drilled a hole in the side of the smoker about 3/16" to get the probes in. One hangs free to keep track of the internal temperature and one goes in the meat.
Not as fancy as the $300-$400 Masterbuilts,but does the job for the 5-6 times a year I use it.

I looked at the Masterbuilts this past year. A lot of bad reviews. Electric controls go bad, see thru door in front gets gummed up,so you can't see in. Several other problems.
I have not encountered any bad/funny tastes from mine when comparing to friends other smokers of higher prices

Since you are loo,I g for low price entry level, fake a look at Little Chief smokers.
You can do a lot with it.

C&P link to browser.

https://www.google.com/search?q=lit...&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Cookshack here. Works like magic.

Not cheap

Very good advice. I made smoked polish sausage lat year in my electric smoker. I kept adding wood chips through the entire cook. That batch of sausage was inedible. Tasted like an ash tray. The other concern is temperature validity. Mine runs about 30’ less than what I program it for. Consequently, it took way more time to cook than it should. After learning the hard way, I used much less smoke and bumped up the temperature and things turned out great this year. Mine is the 40” masterbuilt.

Probably been better if I had proof read that mess.

I use a box over the Little chief to keep its temperature up in colder weather.

Like Saddlesore said

The older Masterbuilts were good, the new ones - not so much (I have one I got as they were changing things around, it’s “ok”)

Smoking anything when it’s cold is a bugger because the heat requirement doesn’t change, but many of the units can’t keep up... I don’t use my master built in anything under 50 degrees....