Any hardcore smokers? (Ov MEEEEAT!?)

Cruising HD this weekend, they have the Traeger "Tailgater" model on clearance for $270. Looks like a killer deal, but it's their bottom-end model, and before buying, I wanted to shop around a bit. I should've busted out a tape measure, but claimed cooking surface is 300 square inches.

After a little "research," it looks like "Pit Boss" grills might be the better value as Traeger has moved production to China, and are really basing their pricing on the name alone. I found this one ("Lexington" model) at WM for $300, claiming 540 square inches of cooking space, though I'm guessing they've included the upper rack, which, honestly, I'd probably never use. It does have "sport wheels," tho. Lawlz.

Right next to it was a vertical smoker...which I guess are just "out of fashion" right now, as apparently everyone wants something that's barrel-shaped. 1650 square inches of smokin' bad-ass-ness for $400. I don't *anticipate* smoking 20 racks of ribs, 9,000 chicken wings, 20 briskets, and a partridge in a berkeleyin pear tree all at once, but the idea of 5X the surface of the traeger for an extra $100 is intriguing. It does seem like it'd be more of a pain to clean, with more moving parts/gaskets/etc to fail, though.

Any opinions on these three? Dissenting votes? I've read good things about "Green Mountain" but they are not available locally. 

I dislike vertical smokers, as I find them too difficult to control temperature. 

I went with the barrel pellet smoker from Rural King, slightly bigger than that Traeger, without a brand name price. It works pretty OK. 

If you go with a pellet smoker, I recommend wrapping it with a welding blanket. They're pretty lightweight metal and the blanket will help a lot. 

Keep an eye out for pellet deals. Rural King regular price is $8/bag with an annual sale to $5/bag, same stuff with the Traeger name on it at Home Depot is $20/bag. 

People seem to either love or hate the pellet smokers, mainly because of the pellets.  I would prefer a traditional wood smoker myself.

As an option, there are DIY kits out there as well. Friend got one of these and loves it

https://www.bigpoppasmokers.com/big-poppa-s-engineered-drum-smoker-kit

A friend is really into meat smoking. He puts together an awesome BBQ set-up for us at Carlisle each year at the Triumph Spitfire tent on Sat.

He had one of those "egg" smokers, but sold it and got an even bigger "egg" thing from a less known make.  He likes it.  The food is incredible. 

I got a $120 offset smoker and it was wonderful until it rusted through. I think you have to figure out what kind of experience you want. Electric smokers are great if you just want to set it and forget it, but I prefer the experience of charcoal and wood.

I was a HARDCORE trager guy until they really started cheaping out on components. 

Personal opinion. I like the vertical pellet smokers better then the barrel smokers. With pellets they are ore consistent in temp and they really will add smoke faster. They can over smoke things like brisket where you are going for 10 hours+. 

All the smokers will do the job but pellets are where the real trick is. I use a no filler food apple/cherry mix for most of what I do and its costs about 3.00$ more a 40lb bag but unless you are a serious BBQ critic you cannot tell the difference between mine and wood fired.Expecially if you finish on the grill.  

Another brand I've heard good things about is Green mountain grills. I know lots of people have good luck with electric and propane box smokers, so I can't imagine a pellet version wouldn't work well. 

I personally use a charcoal Weber Smokey Mountain and it works really well. Minimal babysitting is required and it turns out delicious food. Though a pellet smoker would be less work. Just depends on what experience you're looking for.

I have a Camp Chef Woodwind. Works great. The pellets are nice for the turn it on and leave it alone aspect. With my green egg type knockoff it requires a lot of fiddling/monitoring/adjusting throughout the smoke. Both produce wonderful smoked meats one just takes less involvement/effort than the other.

I do think I could always get a better bark on my pork butts with charcoal and wood chunks than I can with the pellets.

I have an electric vertical.   You don't think you'll need that kind of space and then you start making your own bacon.  You make a little 10lb slab and it disappears in under a week somehow, so you step it up...and up...and well when its "bacon day" at my place all 4 racks of the vertical are full....twice.   

As to electric vs non, its a personal preference.  I wanted to smoke meat, not learn fire management.  No disrespect to those who do want to manage a fire, its part of what interests them.  But for me, I wanted to smoke meat and not have to spend my whole day tending to the process.

In reply to RevRico :

And I was going to say I prefer the vertical, bullet style, smokers because of consistency.

My son has one like that Traeger, and I bought him a bullet style Weber a few years ago, and he says exactly the same thing. I don't think he even uses the other one anymore.

In reply to Suprf1y :

I'm still not a convert completely, I prefer my stick burner, but it's really really nice on a 30 degree day to go turn a knob and 6 hours later pull out perfect ribs. 

I grew up and cut my teeth on an offset stick burner, converted it to a reverse offset, built another, and have a 275 gallon waiting on steel to be converted to a big reverse offset stick burner for a while. 

But I've come to the decision that for most people, as much E36 M3 as I talked through the years on them, the pellet smokers are pretty sweet. 

I've just always had issues in verticals, whether it was cross contamination risk, cleaning, or heat control, so I steer away from them. I've even berkeleyed up with an ugly drum smoker, but any barrel I can work wonders with. 

I'm with Mr. Thw8. 

I use a vertical electric. I just pitched my horizontal machine because it never got used. Heat is heat, smoke is smoke. 

I've smoked on everything and honestly can't tell the difference between wood, charcoal, gas, and electric as far as taste. The machine isn't what provides the flavor, it's how the operator uses the machine. 

Thanks, dudes!

I'm definitely in the "set & forget" electric pellet smoker camp. Before the pellet auger thing, a good buddy of mine (RIP) used to make, hands-down, THE best BBQ I've ever had on one of those $75 HD electric smokers. 
 

I'd prefer to pick up one pre-assembled locally, so I guess the question is which one of the three posted, with the two barrels being equally priced.

Of note: The Traeger gets near $200 with my 20% HD coupon, but I like the fact that the Pit Boss comes with a temp gauge on the lid & two digital probes (though I should probably just buy a "real" one.) Also, we already own a gas Weber for "normal" grilling/reverse sear (which I'm anxious to try) :)

RevRico said:

I dislike vertical smokers, as I find them too difficult to control temperature. 

I'll offer a counterpoint.  I find the exact opposite.  I have two currently; both Brinkman barrels, one charcoal, one electric.  I find the temps to be really easy to control.  I also like the fact that the smoke and heat rise, meaning it all stays the same temperature inside.

Years ago I had the grandaddy of all smokers.  A side-box New Braunfels barrel smoker.  The problem with it was that the heat and smoke entered the box from the fire and went straight up, across the top, and out the chimney.  If I put a few briskets in it, the side closest to the fire got too smoky and too hot, while the far side got very little smoke and cooked way slower.  Since heat and smoke rise, to me the vertical smokers make sense.  They also give a better cooking surface area-to-footprint ratio.

I have a massive water bladder tank that a guy gave to me.  It's about 5' tall and 28" diameter.  I'm going to turn it into a multi-fuel smoker, likely gas and charcoal.  I personally much prefer the verticals.

A guy I camp with in the summer is an award winning smoker competitor in Eastern Canada.  He has won best in category most of the places he's gone.  He competed in St. Louis and won best ribs, in Tennessee he won Best Brisket and best pulled pork, and he uses a customized vertical smoker.

The old-school competition guys will use the big horizontal smokers for cooking area "because tradition", but usually the winners come from vertical smokers.

Truth is, you can't go wrong with any of them.  No one is going to taste the difference between vertical and horizontal.  I just find it way easier to control the heat that gets to the meat much easier with vertical.  For my purposes, vertical is all I use.

I will also echo the fact that the fuel makes little difference.  You're tasting the rub/sauce and the smoke.  The only difference might be with charcoal as it puts off some of it's own flavored smoke.

One benefit to gas is that it puts off its own H20 vapor, so usually water pans aren't needed.

Most of the cheap charcoal smokers are not variable in their heat production.  They have a fixed air leak.  It makes it more user-friendly for new smokers.  If they put too many adjustable vents, I'm sure they would have newbies complain about being too hot or the fire going out.  I have found that I can completely control the heat by the type of fuel I use.  If I use cheap briquettes, I get 220-225.  Hardwood briquettes, 230.  Lump hardwood, 240.  Things too hot?  Spritz of water.  Things too cool?  Throw some dry smoke chips on the coals.  The upside is that the amount of charcoal you use doesn't determine the temperature, it determines the time.  I can load my Brinkman with 2 lbs and it will burn at 230 for 2 hours for some salmon, or I can load it with 10 lbs and it will burn for 9 hours at 230 for a brisket.  It's rare that I smoke for longer than that, but if I do I just light a chimney with another couple pounds and dump it in.

I have frequently loaded up my charcoal smoker at 6am, set up my webcam on the thermometer, and go to work all day and come home to a perfect brisket. It is very much "set and forget".

Here's the one I have and I love it to death.  I have abused it for 5 years, it sits outside, and it finally has a small rust hole in the bottom which means I'll likely buy another one just like it:

Thanks again!

I'm gonna give that vertical Pit Boss a shot!!!

I have an electric Brinkman that my wife got me to try about 10 years ago.  It's worked fine so I never upgraded. It's been good enough that if it does go I'd probably buy another another one unless I hit the lottery and could get one of the commercial indoor electric ones.

I had a Char-broil electric smoker, there were a lot of cool features such as wifi hook up, internal meat gauge that tells you real time temp and automatic modes to shut off when done. Unfortunately never work properly and after a year stopped working. Char-Broil said no warranty and it became scrap. I know have a 3 in 1 Smokey Hallow smoker, propane, and charcoal grill. Only smoked with it a couple times, not bad but not good as a true smoker. I mainly used it for charcoal.

I've exclusively used some form of the Masterbuilt Electric smokers for many years with great success.  Pork and Brisket turn out great, Chicken and Turkey also are a piece of cake if you brine beforehand and then finish in the oven to get it crispy.  Even have smoked fish in it and it turns out damn good. 

I guess if you're a pro a full size charcoal smoker is worth it, but its really really hard to beat electric convenience.  Set it up, go work in the shop, fill with chips when you grab a beer every couple hours, and then dinner is done when you're done in the shop.

Had one of the bigger ones and it was getting old, got a smaller one and you can fit pretty much anything it.  Bigger is better though.

https://www.amazon.com/Masterbuilt-20071117-Digital-Electric-Smoker/dp/B01JGF97D0

I'll post up the Rub recipe we got from thesmokingmeat website, pretty good all purpose rub.

I should hijack this thread and ask you all...  what remote meat thermo do you use?  I had one for years and it finally broke... but no big loss, it wasn't great to start with.  It had a remote that only ever worked about 20' line of sight an only has one probe.

What I really want is one that hooks to my home wifi with an app on my phone. (not one that my phone connects to the thermo's wifi or BT) That frees up bluetooth for music and also lets me go far away, like work, or to the store and still monitor things.  Bluetooth ones only let me go as far as the BT reaches.  I imagine they likely don't make them that way.  It would encourage unattended grills and ovens and the legal department would explode.

2 probes minimum, 4 would be nice.  Any like that?

Don't limit yourself to meat, either.

Jalapenos or Pasillas stuffed with cream cheese and onion smoked for about an hour are killer.  Zucchini, eggplant, and Portabellas do really well too.  Sometime put in a baking sheet with a bunch of tomato slices, onion slices, and some olive oil and smoke it for a couple hours on a higher heat.  Dump the contents into a blender with some half and half and a bit of garlic and you have the world's best smoked tomato bisque.

I want to try smoked beets.  I tried broccoli and it was fair, but it just got dry and rubbery.

I don't use either of these, but have heard good things. However they're spendy. The fireboard  thermometer is WiFi or Bluetooth I believe, and can also run a fan. There's also the thermoworks signals to look into.

Curtis73 said:

I should hijack this thread and ask you all...  what remote meat thermo do you use?  I had one for years and it finally broke... but no big loss, it wasn't great to start with.  It had a remote that only ever worked about 20' line of sight an only has one probe.

What I really want is one that hooks to my home wifi with an app on my phone. (not one that my phone connects to the thermo's wifi or BT) That frees up bluetooth for music and also lets me go far away, like work, or to the store and still monitor things.  Bluetooth ones only let me go as far as the BT reaches.  I imagine they likely don't make them that way.  It would encourage unattended grills and ovens and the legal department would explode.

2 probes minimum, 4 would be nice.  Any like that?

I like my maverick, but the cheap wireless ones I've bought at Aldi for considerably less are just as accurate. Being wireless I their own, no need for Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. I get 100 feet of range, from my steel carport through my concrete and vinyl house to the living room with no problems. 

My maverick has 2 probes, one for the food and one that is just for the cooking area but works good with food too.

Just get the cheap ones and get a few. The $80 I spent on the maverick wasn't worth it when I get similar results for under $20

In reply to Curtis73 :

I have a Meater that is fair. The range sucks a little and as a general rule I don't use it. I think it's available with up to 4 probes. My smoker is also wifi enabled and will give you probe readings on your phone. As a general rule I don't use it either.  I just stab whatevery I'm cooking ever hour or so with a handheld. 

Yeah, I found several thermometers with wifi... but you have to disconnect your phone from "real' wifi and connect to the thermometer, which is really no better than bluetooth for range.

I'm hoping to find one that works like my Nest or my Wyze cam.  It would connect to the home wifi so I can check them when I'm in Zimbabwe or Nepal.

... because I often light the smoker and go to Nepal.  Said no one ever.

But I would like to be able to start the smoker and go to work or the store and be able to make sure it's cooking, make sure the fire didn't go out, the power went off, or the propane tank ran empty, etc.  I had one instance where I got some charcoal that had evidently gotten wet in the outdoor garden section at Lowes.  I lit the fire, put on a Ribeye roast ($$$) marinated in soy sauce, green onion, and Mirin Sake and went to work.  I came home 6 hours later and it was cold, so I had a large chunk of spoiled paycheck and had to disappoint my [very attractive] date.  If I had been able to monitor it, I could have come home and saved it.

And maybe I'd still be dating her.  Ironically, she now works at Lowe's.  I told her to keep an eye on the charcoal.