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Wife offered to get me a smoker for Fathers Day. Didn?t see any recent post on it. Electric, wood, gas?
Those Traegers get expensive quick. How big of one do you need really? The bigger Traegers seem only about $200 more, but do they use a lot more pellets for the big ones?
I had a buddy say that the electrics are the way to go?
What are your experiences?
I have a pellet grill. I won't go back.
Mine is 600 sq in, 24" wide or so. Big enough for decent sized brisket.
Mostly going to depend on your budget and are you talking about being able to smoke all year long....another important factor is smoke a rump roast or smoke a whole hog?
For ease get the pellet one - for 'cheap' - make one out of a 55 gal drum -
for pre-made versions - the things you can find at Buckee's
https://pitbarrelcooker.com/products...cid=61k5_ax5r9
The one I have is one 'free' I received for being with the company for 15 years. sort of mini version of the pit barrel cooker. It is hiding out in Texas...
We bought a big Tex Traeger and have never looked back. It’s about 14 years old now as has cooked/smoked plenty of meats. We’re a family of 5 and I am glad we went it vs the lil Tex. I’ve looked at getting a shelf put on it, and also looked at the storage rack you can put below the barrel but never got around to messing with it. Kind of always went with the “if it’s not broken…”….in the 14 years we’ve had it the only thing we’ve replaced is the garbage cover that came with it. Can’t say enough good things about Traeger from our experiences. Ymmv
The new models have the WiFi capabilities but we couldn’t justify selling the one we have to get a WiFi capable rig.
I'd skip the electrics. I had one that I used in the beginning, but it hadn't gotten touched in the last couple years. Finally gave it away on nextdoor earlier this year.
Traegers (and any other pellet grills) tend to be pricey, but are simple to use, and can turn out a good product without a lot of time spent fiddling with the temps.
Big Green Egg style smokers are pretty simple, but need to spend time messing with temps more than a pellet smoker. Typically used with charcoal and smoke-wood chunks
Offset smokers are the more traditional smokers, with a firebox that burns wood and/or charcoal. A lot more time spent messing with temps, tending the fire, etc. And the cheaper the offset smoker, the harder it will be to use due to more air leaks, not holding heat in well, etc.
I've got an offset smoker that is decent, but I still go to my big green egg style smoker (mine is a Visions Professions S series) for 95% of my cooks.
IMO avoid treager. . There's better for equal, or less $$. If you're a veteran Sportsman's does 5% discount. .
Regarding smokers, how deep you willing to go down the rabbit hole? Also you looking for something to cut your teeth on. Or just go for it? A few different mfg are OOS, or back orders for the next month or so.
we're using a camp chef, unit. Very happy with it, as well as their customer service.
Pit boss, or cuisinart wood creek.
Camp Chef . green mtn, z-grills
rectec
https://www.recteq.com/shop/grills
I picked up a propane one at a yard sale for $75. It has been perfect to cut my teeth on. Mine has four 12"x12" racks. It can be difficult to make temp in the winter, but a simple covering of plywood helps. I was planning on stealing RonDog's idea and building a cabinet for it, but now I think I'm just going to build my own and build in some thermal mass. As for the size, the racks are big enough for a lot of simple stuff up to about 6-8lbs of pork shoulder on a single rack, but it can be a challenge to fit large racks of ribs on there. I've recently started smoking a lot of wings, and wings is generally a group meal. The most I've ever done is I think 84 wings, which sounds like a lot, but usually goes real fast when you're feeding 5+ people. Also, juggling all those wings between four different racks is a bit of a pain. Maybe you can derive some useful info out of all of that. Heh.
One of our daughters traded up for a Yoder YS640S a couple years ago.
1070 square inches of cooking area gives you lots of room.
With computer temperature control and WiFi monitoring you load the hopper, set the temperature, monitor it and wait.
The computer sends status updates over WiFi to 'the cloud" where the phone app can monitor it from anywhere.
https://www.yodersmokers.com/pellet/...-pellet-grill/
Learning temp control while trying to cook at the same time is stressful and can turn people away from smoking. Whatever you do get, the easier it is the maintain the temp, the more you'll enjoy the experience overall.
If you do pit boss get the 1100 from lowes (only lowes). It has a lot more BTU output than ones that e.g. walmart sells.
Then get bulk aluminum pans from sams club or similar. I use those for soo much. Always keep a water pan. Temps aren't perfectly even across the 1100 but that is an advantage for batch cooking when you understand it. It does hold well on temps.