Want to buy a BBQ smoker

[The Brain]

Perfect bark and it smells awesome. 

This brings me back.

[Caliga]

Man, I haven't used my smoker in a long time.  Maybe I'll do pulled pork next weekend.

[Caliga]

Perfect bark and it smells awesome. 

This brings me back.

[Caliga]

Perfect bark and it smells awesome. 

This brings me back.

HA, I just got the joke.

[Caliga]

...but seriously,  I wanted to restart the thread since I just got a new electric cabinet smoker, which I mentioned in another thread, but smoking is serious business and requires its own active thread.  It's a Masterbuilt Sportsman Elite 30" black (i.e. no window) cabinet.  Got it for about $130 at Bass Pro Shops, which I think was pretty good.  The unit only has so-so reviews and there have apparently been a lot of QC problems with the control unit and temp accuracy.

I smoked a 4 1/2 pound whole chicken on it for company last night and everyone said it was great.  I thought it was pretty good myself given it was the first thing done in this smoker and the first thing I've actually smoked in probably a year.  The main thing I didn't like about it (and Princesca complained about also) is that it didn't have a very strong smoky flavor, though it definitely did have a detectable one.

To prepare it, I just took a quarter cup of olive oil and mixed a tablespoon of onion powder, a tablespoon of sweet paprika, a tablespoon of sea salt, a teaspoon of cayenne, a teaspoon of garlic powder, and a teaspoon of black pepper into it and then rubbed the chicken down with it while the smoker was coming up to temp.  Before I started the smoker I loaded the wood hopper up with JD whiskey barrel chips, and after I put the chicken in there I fed a mixture of the whiskey chips and hickory in to the wood side loader about once every 45 minutes or so.  It was done (internal temp 165 F) in a little over four hours.

At this point I've literally got nothing but the smoker, wood, and a cheapo meat dial thermometer for tools.  I guess the next thing I need is a good probe thermometer for measuring the smoker's ambient temp as well as meat temp.  It looks like there are all these new neat gizmos that are wireless and can connect to your home WiFi, send you emails when certain thresholds/times are reached, etc.  Anyone have any experience with those?

[Caliga]

Oh, the other cool thing about it is that while it's bulky, it's actually pretty light (I would guess 50 pounds max) so I've been carrying it inside after it cools to store it.  One of the reasons I stopped smoking on my Brinkmann is because it's starting to rust out, so I'm trying to avoid the environment destroying another smoker.

[CountDeMoney]

Maybe good for Katmai, but not for real people.

[MadImmortalMan]

In the time since then, I've probably cooked more with that thing than I have in my kitchen, and I cook a lot.

Cal--What are you spending on all this high-tech wizardry?

My dad visited here last year and I put a brisket in the CG. He was worried about it but I said don't worry it'll be going steady this time tomorrow. Sure enough, the next afternoon it was still holding steady at 240ish. I love that damn thing. Even in a blizzard I will use it. And the charcoal use is like a Prius to a Charger.

What do the chips/fuel cost? Is it an electric auto-feed thingie?

I'm almost entirely low-tech but I do have a set of radio thermometers that I can use to monitor the meat and the ambient from my desk while I'm playing civ or something. They break often, but aren't that expensive. Mainly, it's good to catch flare-ups before they cause too much damage. When the monitor on my desk goes from 250 to 400 I know I need to go outside.

[Eddie Teach]

Perfect bark and it smells awesome. 

This brings me back.

HA, I just got the joke.

What did you think it was 2 years ago?

[Caliga]

MiM... Nothing yet but the wireless units are typically in the 50-100 range.

[Caliga]

What do the chips/fuel cost? Is it an electric auto-feed thingie?

Sorry didn't notice earlier that you had asked a second question.  In theory you can run it with no wood at all in which case you're basically cooking your food in a hot box.  OEM, the smoker has a little wood chip tray you are supposed to fill up before turning it on so that it's nice and smoky once it's up to temp and it's time to load the meat.  It also has a little port on the side that a slotted cylinder fits in to, that you can remove, load with more wood chips, and replace which dumps the additional chips into the chip tray (which sits right above the heating element).  That way, you can add more wood without even having to open the smoker up at all.

That said, in my one smoking experience so far, I found that I had to add more wood chips every 30-45 mins or so which is annoying and makes an overnight smoke impossible unless you are ok with it not having much smoky flavor.  Because of this problem there are some aftermarket chip/pellet trays available that you load up, light on fire with a propane torch, and then load into the smoker at the beginning of the smoke that are supposed to produce steady smoke for many hours.

[CountDeMoney]

[Eddie Teach]

You gonna open a convenience store?

[Caliga]

You gonna open a convenience store?

No need, since I have many excellent establishments nearby already.

[Caliga]

At some point this weekend I'm gonna smoke a pork butt, pull it, and top it with Carolina Gold BBQ sauce.

Ide:  am trying to make sauce that tastes like Maurice's Racist sauce.