Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We love using wood in our gas grill outside. Unfortunately, when it comes time to cook in the winter, we can not always use our grill. Wind, extreme cold, and snow leave us craving that smoked taste for our food. Not anymore. I am not sure we will ever crave smoke again. Let's see what happened. WHAT IS THIS LIKE? SIZE This smoker is about the size of a 6 or 7 quart crockpot. HEATING UNIT Inside there is a squiggly heating element that looks like a mini florescent light bulb (incandescent screw in type). There is a ring that comes with it and a cap. That goes around the element. The idea is that you put wood chips in the element area with the ring around it and cover with the cap. RACKS There are three racks. The bottom one has handles and the upper two stack onto that bottom one so you can do three layers of meat or food. INSERT If you prefer slow cooking, there is a nonstick pan that comes with the unit. You use that as a slow cooker. It feels like aluminum with nonstick coating on it. THE FRONT PANEL There are choices for setting different cooking. There is slow cooking, cold smoke, hot smoke, and combo smoke. It is digital readout so that you have a way to know how much time is left in your cycle or if it is done. COLD SMOKE That is for nuts, cheese, and cooked food. You can also do vegetables on this one. HOT SMOKE This is for fish or other quick cooking items and only lasts a short while. COMBO SMOKE This is what you use for large cuts of meat such as brisket. INSTRUCTION MANUAL This comes with a basic manual. There are a few recipes in there, which are delicious, but it is very sparse and basic. LID Like a crockpot lid, this is the same shape with a rubberized seal on the outside. There is a handle on top and two plugs that go into the lid holes to keep the smoke in. When you want to take the lid off you need to unplug those to break the suction formed by the cooking. HOW DOES THIS PERFORM? This is a fantastic cooker. We did brisket in there using the rub recipe inside and it was asbolutely fantastic. We used grass fed meat which is typically tough and it was as tender as could be. It was fantastic. The smoke was awesome. DOES IT SMELL? Well, if you are sensitive or have smoke alarms, I am not exaggerating when I say TURN OFF SMOKE ALARMS BEFORE USING THIS. If you are sensitive to smoke, you will want to use this in your garage or spare room that you can seal off. I put this in our basement at the opposite end of the house from the doorway into the basement. I was sitting as far away as you can get and I could smell smoke like a campfire. DID THE SMELL BOTHER US? The smell was fun to have - for now. I am not sure I would want to have this running a lot, however. It really did make the house smell like a campfire. WOOD USED DO NOT USE WOOD PELLETS THAT ARE MEANT FOR HEATING. THEY ARE NOT FOOD SAFE. We got bourbon, mesquite, and apple wood. We got the apple for doing fish or poultry as the other two are more for darker meats. CLEANING? If you want to clean this successfully, you need to dump out the juice while it is still hot. That will allow you to have a lot less to clean once in cools off. To clean the smoker, you wash the lid and the cup and cover of the smoking component. Then when it comes time to clean out the smoker base, you use a LITTLE bit of soapy water and wash the inside being careful not to immerse the heating element. Although it says you can put a few pieces in the dishwasher, I would not do that. It will shorten the life of the unit. THE BOTTOM LINE For delicious smoked food that really is fantastic, this is a wonderful device. If you are sensitive to smoke smell, live in an apartment, or have smoke alarms you do not want to turn off, this might not be the device for you. It would be best used in a garage or in an area that is protected but not going to allow the smoke smell into the house. We use it in our basement, but it really does have a heavy smoke smell. Still it is delicious. MY RATING FOUR STARS. I would have liked to see them make this a little bit more sealed so that it did not leak quite as much smoke into the house. The food is delicious and I know we will be using this often despite the smell. Brisket is going to be the smelliest because it is five to six hours. Other foods are much less time so the smoke smell will not be as bad.