# Electric or propane smoker cabinets?



## Cartman (Jun 18, 2008)

Is the old saying you get what you pay for or what? There's a Cook Out brand down at Academy for $180, Amazon $150. It looks sturdy and it's insulated. Does anyone have any experience with these or others? I'm not really interested in the pellet types.


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## Team S.A. Blue (Sep 8, 2004)

Ive had both. The propane will run out and leave you hanging. Atleast it did with me.
I have a smokin tex elec. smoker rightnow and i really like it. its set and forget. I still have a stick burner but when im not going to be here to tend to the fire i will throw the meat in the tex and go.


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## scotccrn (Jan 4, 2006)

One word. Cookshack...


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## Too Tall (May 21, 2004)

Traeger


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## Cartman (Jun 18, 2008)

Tod, the idea of using some kind of using some kind of processed wood pellets doesn't seem right to me... I think i'm going to go with this one? http://www.cabelas.com/smokers-acce...-F5D2-DF11-82EF-001B21631C34&mr:referralID=NA


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## Cartman (Jun 18, 2008)

scotccrn said:


> One word. Cookshack...


I'm sure those Cookshacks are awesome, but they're a little out of what i'm willing to part with.


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## Too Tall (May 21, 2004)

Cartman said:


> Tod, the idea of using some kind of using some kind of processed wood pellets doesn't seem right to me... I think i'm going to go with this one? http://www.cabelas.com/smokers-acce...-F5D2-DF11-82EF-001B21631C34&mr:referralID=NA


$130 and you can have the one I got. Only used it twice. The electric cabinet that is


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## bassguitarman (Nov 29, 2005)

Team S.A. Blue said:


> Ive had both. The propane will run out and leave you hanging. Atleast it did with me.


If you're a doofus like me you can fail with an electric smoker too. I had cooked on the same electric smoker for years so I knew exactly how long it took to smoke a chicken. My daughter's boyfriend liked smoked chicken so I fired up the smoker. An hour and a half later, I pulled the lid off the smoker to find a raw chicken. The heating element had burned in two, probably within 5 minutes of me plugging the smoker in. Pizza night.....


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## rebelangler (May 21, 2004)

i bought the electric cook out brand from a guy on here a few months ago and have probably used it once a week since i bought it..purchased a digital meat thermometer with a metal cord to run inside through the door seal and i am extremely impressed by the way it works..i wanted to try an experiment so i took a frozen venison roast out of the freezer and put it in the smoker still frozen..set the time and temp for other meats that we where doing and after 1 hour i pulled it out and seasoned it well..from frozen total time was 2 hours 40 min to medium rare 160 internal temp...went to HEB and bought different types of wood chips and im ready for anything now...we are waiting to do some catfish..the fresh tuna turned out great the salmon as well the bison was to die for and well the axis roast would have made you slap yourself...shot a hog a few weeks ago so i took venison backstrap and sliced it open and placed the hog tenders inside then rolled it back up and well it worked well to..mango does well in there too.....anyways i have the cookout brand and i love it and so does my friends and family......

hi my name is brian and i am an smoker addict...


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## Mountaineer Mark (Jul 15, 2009)

I'll put the Bradley Smoker electric up to any of the others.........


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## John Galt (Aug 6, 2006)

I have a Birnkmann electric smoker - last time I tried to use it, it started tripping circuit breakers. Anyone else seen this? I used a 20 amp circuit, like I've used in the past, but still no joy.

Thinking about going with a more expensive model - I want to do cold smoking in addition to hot smoking. Thanks for the suggestions, all. 

Typically, how much current do these models draw?

FYI...I used to have a Bandera wood smoker...but it's not wise to use up here in the mountains. Not to mention...I have to used it on a wood deck as the bears aren't as likely to go up the deck as they are walk around the house at ground level.


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## drfishalot (Sep 9, 2004)

scotccrn said:


> One word. Cookshack...


x2


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## Cartman (Jun 18, 2008)

I bought the Cookout from TooTall a couple months ago. I'm still trying to dial in the smoke. I haven't used it much but the brisket I did, I cooked fat cap down and that's not the way to go. It didn't get any smoke... I tried wings and we couldn't eat them because of the smoke. There is definitely a learning curve when cooking on an electric smoker... I have faith I will get it down though. It holds temp well and the water pan keeps the electric heat from drying out the meat.


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## Delta Elite (May 28, 2011)

John Galt said:


> I have a Birnkmann electric smoker - last time I tried to use it, it started tripping circuit breakers. Anyone else seen this?


Yes. The same thing happens occasionally on my electric turkey fryer. Just switch to another circuit.

Bradley, Brinkman, Masterbuilt. All good. It is more about the man operating it than the machine.

I have custom built a few offset, reverse flow smokers and my Masterbuilt electric is still my fave.

And if anyone wants a custom backyard offset smoker, let me know. Thinking about doing another run in the fall.


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