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I swung by Home Depot last night and on impulse and with a craving to try this out, I bought an electric smoker. All they carry are the cheapie Charbroil line of smokers and they only had a couple left of both the electric and wood/charcoal fired ones. I grabbed a bag of hickory chunks, some of those ceramic briquettes, and some other junk that I needed for the house. $60 for the smoker, $5 for the wood chunks, $12 for the briquettes, and $20 of house stuff.

Soaked the wood, assembled the smoker then placed the briquettes in and around the heating element (meant to temper the heat and provide a hot bed for the wood chips). I fired that baby up (plugged it in), set it to "medium", put in a couple handfuls of wood chunks, filled the water pan and let it run for an hour or so. The temp gauge in the lid didn’t get above 150° F but the water was boiling away and the wood was just starting to smoke so obviously the temp gauge is worthless.

I grabbed a meat thermometer and stuck it into the side of the smoker where the lower rack is. After a little wait, the thermometer was reading a bit over 200° F. The smoke was building with a nice hardwood aroma.

I monitored it for the next few hours and topped off the water twice. It seemed as though I went through water pretty fast, I put in 96 oz over 5 hrs or so. Oh well, it’s late so I let it run overnight and hit the hay. In the morning, it was still smoking along, the water pan was empty, and the thermometer was reading 300° F. Too hot, I know. I still need to get a feel for the settings on the temp controller and I haven’t played around with the vents yet.

When I set off for the maiden meat voyage, I’ll monitor it more closely and adjust the temp setting and vents until I get it right. After that I hope its “set it and forget it.”

Few questions:

1) What volume of smoke is desirable? At steady state, I had wisps of smoke/steam bleeding out from under the lid and access door. I’ve read that too much smoke will ruin the meat. How much should I be looking for?
2) I’ve also read that if your not burning the wood at the right temp you’ll get creosote build up - again ruining the meat. How do I tell if the wood is burning at the right temp? In the morning there were signs of creosote (tar like stuff) around the crack between the lid and body and also around the access door. Not too much but noticeable.
3)Is it normal to go through so much water?
4)Do you have a favorite quick smoking recipe that I can try? I’d like to do a small 6 to 8 hr smoking that I can start in the morning and have done by dinner time. Just as a trial run before I go for the overnighter.

I welcome any comments, criticisms, suggestions, tips…

^ yep.........what TW said.

Try a cycle of three hours for 225F then an hour or two at 275F for ribs.

In my smoker, I put in a few chunks of wood to make smoke for the first few hours..........after that I don't bother. Also remember........most of the smoke you see coming out of the smoker is wasted.....you don't need much. For some recipes, I start the fire and let it burn the wood for quite a bit of time before putting any food in it so the smoke is a little "cleaner".

One of the challenges of an electric, or so I have heard, is that it takes a while to build up heat so every time you open the door you get a big temp fluctuation.

I don't know........I rarely use water. In my smoker, the water is really just used as a heat sink to prevent to coals from directly heating the meat........with my controller it is not necessary and I think that the "water keeps meat moist" concept is bullcrap. Fat keeps meat moist.

the water does regulate temp (helps keep temp down and constant). I don't use water either because the guru does that for me. I use wadded up foil in my water pan.

But in your situation I probably would use water....as Andy said, not for moisture but temp control.

NINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One thing I do to speed up the initial heating process is to pre boil the water going into the pan. I also will boil any water being added before going to bed. Check out bass pro shop dot com and order a Brinkmann charcoal pan for $4, add a 10lb bag of mesquite and or hickory if you like to offset shipping. It should fit but I'm not positive, but it holds almost two gallons of water. You WSM owners should order a couple / three to if you haven't already. They definitely fit the WSM and are almost twice the capacity of the stock water pans. Bass pro also has an assortment of wood chips that work well for grilling, not so much for BBQ but they will work in a pinch.

Charcoal pan;

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&partNumber=59967&hvarTarget=search&cmCat=SearchResults


JJ

^ Aristocrat...LOL

^ sounds kinda gay to me

I foil butts, and briskets after cooking and stuff them in a cooler for an hour or two. It seems to let things set up....... its a trick some use on ribs as well but tradionionalists get pissy about it.

Like teedubbya, I also did a 2-step procedure where you smoke / cook the meat, freeze (or refrigurate) the meat, and then do another hour on the grill.

Fall-off-the-bone tender, and I think it tends to intensify the smokey flavor.

By the way... the insaneo the clown is me trying to practice east coast arrogance with KC knowledge :)

I did the apple juice thing because a lot of pros do it.

Maybe I skip that next time and see what happens.

Maybe I should soak the chips longer?

Post 17 teedubbya said
"I foil my butts..."

Post 20 teedubbya said
"15+ hour butt smoke is..."

Post 24 teedubbya said
"I load my butt with plain yellow mustard then..."


I'm starting to get a little uncomfortable now. Maybe this BBQ thing is more than I bargained for.

Maybe if I don't soak the chips, and then run the heater at a low temp.

I'm thinking the chunks are better seeing that they probably last longer. I used chunk hickory soaked for 30 min for my dry run last night. After about 11 hrs there was still some left and I think I had too much smoke going.

pecan is similar to hickory but milder

I like a pecan cherry mix

mmmmmmmm.......zinc plating infused BBQ.