My old chargrill sidebox smoker finally rusted out beyond salvage.

I was considering an upright propane fired smoker, one of those cabinet style that have the chip and water trays at the bottom, racks, etc.

Any good brands to watch for or avoid?

Should I consider a different style?

One of the reasons I want to quit the charcoal & wood is because it's a PITA to babysit the thing every 20 minutes and have to constantly [censored] with fuel, the temp and mist the meat etc.

Will I be able to use one on a synthetic deck?

Any help--Thanks.

Irie Mon

Have you considered electric? I've heard a lot of guys having issues with the propane smokers not getting down to a low enough temp. I know several guys with the Bradley puck smokers and they love them. Plug it in, load the pucks, set the thermostat and walk away for 8 hours. I'm in the same boat as you, I use charcoal/wood, but when the time comes to do something different, I'll be going electric. Plus, I'm always the guy that runs out of propane with my food half cooked.

I'm with Steve on this. If you want a lot of heat, propane is great and I use it for a lot of things, but not smoking. Also it sounds (and I'm only guessing) that you may have a ventilation problem if you are misting the meat. I would suggest that you try reducing the ventilation and using large wood chunks instead of chips to reduce the need to babysit the thing.
I'd tell you what I use, but then I'd have to kill you.

Bingo. Turn on your traeger, put your meat on and walk away. It will do the rest...

Love mine, and I'm on my 4th year with it and it's just starting to show signs of rust/paint peeling but I use it 100 times a year or more....

Keith

I have two of these:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Outdoors-Smoky-Mountain-25-Gas-Smoker/12429510

Low is about 180 degrees for me which is great for fish and you'll be able to do two large turkeys, briskets, ribs, roasts, etc. Competition smokers claim it takes a good year to properly season a smoker so give them time.

Check out MAK grills if you have the coin they are very well made.
Made in U.S.A

Gas has too much moisture for the best Q.

First I've heard that one. Don't water pans have moisture?

Those old bullet smokers had the water pan mainly to keep the heat down, and many things have been discovered over the past 30 years.

I converted my side pit smoker from coal/wood to gas/wood after getting sick of baby sitting the thing. The quality of BBQ was way better before the gas due to moisture.

The water pan does two things for me, since my smoker is a huge upright I built myself and I use charcoal/wood. It acts at a heat shield to keep the direct flame from cooking the meats too fast. Recently I've started putting down foil under the water pan, which is a turkey roasting pan, to cover the rest of the grate that it sits on, with the only opening the outer two inches of the grate. Far easier to control this way, especially with something like albacore tuna that only smokes for a couple hours on a very low heat. The pan also provides steam to keep things moist, and help the smoke penetrate the meat. I still get a little more heat on the bottom racks of course, but with the foil it is a lot more even top to bottom than it was before.

Thanks for the tips. I decided to opt for the electric model, but I didn't want to drop the coin on the Traeger or the Bradley because of that 'puck' and 'pellet' bullschit.

Because that schit's just entirely fuct.


I went with Masterbuilt's low end electric from Cabela's. Why? Cost and convenience. Plus the door has a seal, which is one of the reasons my old side box chargrill sucked so much donkey dong. The fuggin thing leaked hot air almost as much as Hankster's posts. It was a pain keeping the temp regulated and I felt like a steam locomotive engineer just keeping the thing at 225º. Many of the cabinet style smokers didn't have a seal and on some displays the doors barely closed at all.
The Big Chief smokers weren't ever a consideration because they are so slipshod and flimsy.
I'm still not sure if I should've gone propane or not, but not having to fill and store tanks sounds nice.

I almost pulled the trigger on the Great Outdoors Smoky Mountain, but at last minute reading these posts on my iPhone decided to go electric.

Looking forward to your review on how you like it after you use it!

I'll post a review after the first rack of ribs I don't completely [censored] up.

After an entire year of fighting with that side-box chargrill trying to figure out WTF I was doing wrong I finally quit trying to use 100% wood but went to 90% lump charcoal 10% wood, left the chimney always open, flipped the charcoal tray over to become a baffle, switched to a digital thermometer and stopped pointing the damper opening into the wind.

Then after 6-7 years of good results and winter neglect the thing finally rusted away.

I have some wood combo recipes for salmon that are available via PM if anyone's interested. If I tell you Doug Fir and pressure treated lumber scraps, it means you're on my schit list.

Did a set of ribs and then a beef brisket.

The conclusion on the 'lectric smokers so far is that they only have a fraction of the smoke flavor, but are by far less headache & hassle than a sidebox pit smoker.

I could run through the comparitive steps of prep, preheat, cook, takedown and clean up of an electric vs. charcoal & wood set up, but I'll leave it to the imagination. I'll just say electric is pretty much just 'plug-n-play.'

I'll try tightening the damper in the future to see if the flavor intensifies.