Masterbuilt 30-inch Digital Electric Vertical BBQ Smoker with Leg Kit Side Wood Chip Loader and 710 Cooking Square

This is my third one of these. Bought for my daughter this time. This is a very simple old school style smoker. I have been smoking food for over 45 years. I always used an old refrigerator, those of you who know, Know. I am a simple man. This little smoker is very well built for the price. The heating element is old style like old electric skillets used to be. They almost never fail. This smoker is sturdy, decent size for ribs, brisket and or pork butts . I use mine for smoked mullet. I dedicate a smoker to fish as any smoker you use afterwards will ultimately make every thing taste fishy. I highly recommend this smoker, it is a great brand and they stand behind their product. You can buy a 4 year extended warranty thru amazon for around 30 bucks . This is a game changer for those who worry about quality. When this one wears out after 10 years I will buy another. I love Masterbuilt products. Can't beat it for 163.00 in Amazon. This is 300 every where in my town at the big box stores if you can even find them during the winter. Read more

I have purchased this smoker twice. The first one ran great for 3 years, but finally the heating element burned out. It's now in my garage awaiting warm weather so I can install the replacement element that I ordered online and will serve as a backup when the heating element burns out in my current smoker. The elements will burn out after a time, particularly when you use a smoker as often as I do (3 or 4 times a week year-round). Unboxing and doing the minor assembly required for this smoker is quick and easy. It took me less than 30 minutes. Spending more on an electric smoker with a window is a waste, in my view, because the glass quickly gets fogged with steam and smoke residue. Besides, you should be cooking to internal temperature with a good remote temperature probe instead of opening the door periodically (letting heat and smoke escape) to check on progress. Speaking of not opening the door while cooking, I'm a huge fan of this smoker's external smokewood loading feature that allows you to add wood without opening the door. Pre-heating the smoker is important in cold weather. Up to a 30 minutes may be necessary. Pre-heating is not so necessary during the warm/hot spring/summer/fall months if the outside temperature is above 60̊ F. In fact, there is a good reason to skip pre-heating entirely on really warm days (over 80̊ F.), as explained in the next paragraph. Of course, the Masterbuilt electric smokers rely on a electric heating element for heat. The element automatically turns off when the smoker reaches the target temperature you set. It then turns back on when the temperature in the cabinet drops several degrees below the target temperature. While the Masterbuilt smokers are pretty well insulated, they are affected by the outdoor temperature. You will find that the element stays on much longer during colder weather, so there is hardly ever a problem getting enough smoke in such weather. However, particularly when the outdoor temperature is over 80̊ F. or so, the element will not stay on as much, which can decrease the smoke production. I have two approaches to this problem: (1) In hot weather, I never pre-heat the smoker. I just put the meat in the smoker and start it "cold." This maximizes the initial smoke until the smoker gets to the target temperature, which can takes as little as 10 minutes in really hot weather if you're cooking at, say, 225̊. (2) Every once in a while if not enough smoke is being produced, I open the door for 30 to 60 seconds and let the temperature in the cabinet come down, forcing the heating element to come back on. This hardly ever results in extended cooking time because the temperature recovers pretty quickly, and if not enough smoke is being produced anyway, you're not letting out a lot of smoke. A lot of my meat smoking projects are under 3-4 hours, and I always use the Masterbuilt for those. I'm only tempted to fire up my Weber bullet charcoal smoker for longer smokes such as ribs and brisket. Tips for easier cleanup: Line the bottom tray of the smoker with foil and be sure to poke a hole in the foil to match the hole in the tray. Also, foil the water pan before every use of the smoker, which makes it super easy to clean. Try it just once without foil, and you'll be a dedicated water-pan-foiler thereafter! Also, get a protective heat-resistant mat to go under the smoker and protect your patio or deck because there will be occasional spills of grease no matter how careful you are. The photo shows my smoker in operation on Christmas Day 2020 -- doing a twice-smoked ham. If you look closely, you can see the clean smoke coming out the vent on the top right of the smoker. Read more

Totally stress free. I have had all the other types of smokers but I got old and lazy. When I moved to the retirement community I got lazy and bought an electric smoker. I can set it for 18 hours and go away for the day, no worries. I add chips for smoke flavor a few times and it comes out perfect. No red ring as that is caused by NOx from wood fires but is not important for flavor. I got the 40 inch size so a whole big brisket fits on 1 rack. I have a friend that got the model with the window. After a couple times scraping the stuff off the window he stopped scraping. Window is not needed. Since it’s electric just set it and forget it. On a side note, as I said I’m lazy so I no longer make my own rub. I buy the “Tony Chanceries No Salt”. Since it has no salt I can put it on as thick as I want (remember to salt the meat separately). I don’t rub it, I cover it thick. On a side, side note I got wireless thermometers. Much easier to use (did I say I’m lazy?) and it is blue tooth so as I sit here I can check the meat. The brand I got, ThermoMaven, produces a nice time vs temp chart on my phone so I can see when the stall starts and finishes as well as when the meat is done. Now if Elon will get busy and make a robot to take the meat out of the smoker I can be fully lazy. Read more

First of all, the directions say it takes about 25 minutes to assemble. Don't believe a word of that. The only way it would take 25 minutes is if you have had practiced multiple times and used a few power assistance tools. Using just an adjustable wrench and a Philips screwdriver per the instructions, add about 3 hours. In another words, take your time and assemble carefully per the instructions. As you can see from the photos, it didn't fare undamaged from the shipping aspect. The shippers/FedEx dumps it off on your doorstep and escapes before you can get to the box. I was just hoping the internals had fared better. Once I got the box opened and its contents out, I could see that the backplane took some light damage to where a couple pop rivets 'popped'. For the price, I took the gamble that there wasn't more internal damage and this was just cosmetic. Of course the wife says to send it back after I spent the three hours assembling. I wasn't about to reverse the entire assembly process to do so. Follow the instructions on the initial curing process. My first venture was to do baby back pork ribs. I decided to follow a 2-1-1 hour, 250 degree, recipe process. You basically add more flavored wood every 30 minutes for the first couple of hours. Very simple to do. Oh, you just program your cooking temp and forget. No messing with charcoal/etc. and readjusting the temp. At the end of 4 hours, I had the best ribs I've ever cooked. They were so juicy and smokey. So if you want to venture into smoking foods, this unit is simple to operate, thus a good starter system for a low initial cost. Just pray that it survives the shipping. The box could have used some additional internal protection. Read more