Offset smoker vrs electric smoker

[Ghawtho]

I’m on cross roads about offset smokers and electric smokers. I friend in town totally stopped using stick burners and is using electric smokers, he is using the unit that has the small 1/2” diameter in the (centered) top of the smoker. This afternoon he gave me a brisket point smoked in his electric smoker. Got home and sliced it and dang it’s good. I like his brisket MUCH MUCH better than my brisket that was smoked using the Yoder Wichita. Wayne told me why are you messing with an offset smoker when it requires lots of labor to smoke a brisket, the electric will smoke just as good. He told me your killing yourself with an offset smoker. I’m kinda on the fence about the two smokers.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

From your previous posts, I can guess that maybe a stick burner isn't for you... luckily you got one with a decent resale market if you chose to give up trying to figure it out.

[Panhead John]

Judging from all his previous posts about briskets, maybe smoking briskets just isn’t for him either.

[Ghawtho]

@Panhead John
The Yoder Wichita has done a good job on smoking ribs and the taste proves that. On the brisket using the same wood and same burning method the same flavor is not on the brisket. I’m burning the fire clean with blue smoke throughout the entire cook. Maybe the problem is burning too much wood. I don’t know.

[Ghawtho]

I’m doing back strokes on my thoughts on my Yoder Wichita offset. After thawing out meat and reheating am like dang that’s some good brisket and ribs. I think after a smoke the nose and taste buds fatigue to the smoke flavor. Then after reheating the smoked meat days later the taste is all different.

[Jerod Broussard]

You just need a Bronco Smoker.

[glitchy]

You’re part of Rempe’s horse meat crusade too? I have no desire to smoke any broncos. Unless you’re talking football?

[barelfly]

Is he using a Smokin’ It Smoker?

if you want lazy q, set it and forget it, and get repeatable great results, look into one of those for yourself. It is what I use and it’s great. But given what you posted on other threads, It may not be the smoke profile you are looking for. It’s a lighter smoke profile.

but it’s easy to use and doesn’t need to be baby sat.

[Stuey1515]

I love the challenge of my home built offset, never used a pooper so can't really give an educated opinion.
But I have a penchant for doing things the hard way all my life 😂

[glitchy]

I’m not a fan of the electric insulated box smokers. Very low airflow and easy to get creosote. They’re also often limited to a 250-275° max temp making them bad for poultry. If I wanted super easy smoker but not a pellet grill, I’d get a KBQ (oh wait I did ) or go the IVC (insulated vertical charcoal smoker) / quality gravity feed route with ATC (not one of the cheap big box gravity ‘grill/smokers’ meant to be more like a pellet grill)…or even a WSK.

I haven’t caught your other threads and concerns about the Yoder, but on another forum there are multiple threads about airflow problems with Yoder stick burners due to something in the design. I have no idea if that’s still an issue or if changes have been made. I just recall seeing the discussions repeatedly.

That all being said, there’s a reason die hards sling logs. I love my pellet grill, but if you’re going to really taste difference between maple, hickory, or apple smoke a stick burner is going to be best at it.

[bep35]

If you haven't done so already, read Meat Head's article "What You Need to Know About Wood, Smoke, And Combustion" (https://amazingribs.com/more-techniq...ood-and-smoke/). He sheds light on the electric vs. gas. vs. stick burners vs. charcoal vs. pellets argument.

He also has an excellent article on electric smokers "Electric Smokers: Buying Guide, Reviews, Ratings, And Recommendations" (https://amazingribs.com/ratings-revi...ctric-smokers/).

Have fun!

[Sid P]

Keep in mind that there’s a whole world between electric smokers and log burners. I just bought a pellet smoker for convenience, but a used Weber kettle and a Slow ‘N Sear make great food, including brisket.

[Jfrosty27]

Have a Smokin-it model #2. It was my first true smoker after decades of only having a Weber gasser. I don’t use it much anymore since I got my Recteq pellet pooper. But I never had any complaints about it other than it’s limited temperature range. Turned out a lot of great Q on the little guy. I think I need to get reacquainted with it. 🤔

[Huskee]

All smokers will make delicious food, if you know how to cook the food. Saying one is better, or one is just as good as, or one is worse, is all purely subjective. You can make great ribs in your oven, because ribs cooked properly are good. Are ovens better than smokers? Well, no, to most of us. To my dad, yes, he has zero interest in running any smoker so he makes oven ribs and loves them. They key is finding what you can operate, what you enjoy operating, and what you enjoy the food from. Maybe a stickburner isn't for you.

[MBMorgan]

Bingo!

[Johnny Booth]

Yep. Where it rains just about every day from July-September. We will cook in the oven with no issue. On those days, we used smoked paprika, smoked sea salt, to add some flavor. Not nearly as much fun (for me) as the stick burner tho. 😁

[SmokeyGator]

Electric smokers do have a few advantages. Ease of use is one. I also found that for smoke the best thing to do was load up the wood chip tray with DRY wood then turn it on, removing the bottom plug thing that adds more wood chips and leaving the top vent open. The wood will catch on fire, heating the thing up faster. Then add more chips to the embers and when that is on fire put the food in and regulate the air flow so it is not completely open but also not closed.

Another often overlooked advantage is that you can use an electric smoker as a food holding oven. Set the temp to 160, do not use any wood, and there you go.

[johnec00]

Also great for smoking sausage, and peppers. Oh and jerky.

[glitchy]

I think he’s comparing to a slightly different electric smoker though. The description sounds more like a SmokinTex, Cookshack, Smokin-It smoker. You load that up full of chips you won’t be able to eat the food. I don’t remember the exact rule, but you use a chunk of smoking wood the size of a deck of cards for a pork butt. Plus you often have to throw a couple pieces of charcoal in the smoke box to get a smoke ring. I had a Smokin Tex before my first pellet grill.

[barelfly]

glitchy - I use anywhere from 6-10oz (3 blocks) of wood with my Smokin-It for a brisket, a little more for multiple pork butts. I can also get my cooker up to 325, great for chicken. And…smoke ring…meh. kidding

And as others say, they are great for everything.

[JeffJ]

One point to note. A pellet smoker and electric smoker are not the same thing. With a pellet smoker the source of the heat is the pellets themselves. An electric smoker uses an electric coil as the heat source and a separate apparatus to introduce smoke into the cooking chamber.

Way back in the day I had a Bradley electric smoker. It produced very good tasting food and was easy to use (a pain to clean, though). Then one Christmas I got a 14.5" WSM which I wanted for camping/tailgates but it has surprising capacity for such a small cooker and has gotten a good amount of use over the years. After cooking on it a couple of times I set up a baby back blind taste test between the 2 cookers doing everything I could to keep variables other than the cookers themselves to a minimum. The result was unanimous - 11 people sampled the ribs and the WSM was the hands down winner.

With the availability of temperature control fans cooking with charcoal and wood chunks can be just about as easy as a pellet or electric, so that is another option to consider. I have an OKJ offset and love the flavor that wood provides but it does require a lot of babysitting. I've done ribs in it a couple of times but when I've done something that takes really long, like a pork butt, I started in the offset for about 3 hours (most of the smoke adhesion occurs towards the beginning of the cook) and then transferred the meat to one of my charcoal cookers to finish.

[Ghawtho]

I’m going to tell on myself here. I absolutely love the taste of the commercially smoked briskets and am trying to get that flavor but can’t. You might taste my brisket and tell me it’s fine and that am trying to hard. But I can tell you am not satisfied.

[realdocBBQ]

What 'commercially smoked' briskets are you talking about?

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

depending on your definition of commercially smoked, you may be trying to achieve a brisket baked in an oven coated and maybe injected with liquid smoke, you aren't gonna achieve that flavor in any smoker (and I'm not sure why anyone would want to). If you mean what your favorite bbq joint is pumping out, go tell them you're struggling to even come close and see if they will show you their process... Lots of us here have received kitchen/pit tours just by asking.

[Old Mr Boston]

A few weeks ago I wrote that I was tired of babysitting my NG-modified Smoke Vault and bought an electric smoker that would maintain a constant temperature. Several folks chastised me for "going to the dark side," and after my first experiment with the electric I agree that it doesn't FEEL like a real smoker, using only chips instead of chunks. Recently I wondered if the NG modification made small changes too big, so I installed an original burner. Unfortunately, winter snow and ice have made my deck too dangerous for this old gimpy guy, even using my walker. So I can't test my theory right now. When I can safely walk from the house to the smoker I'll let you know what I discover.

[STEbbq]

You should probably start a new thread and let us know which one you bought so we can best help.

[Huskee]

The chastising is all in good fun! ANY smoker will make good food if you know how to cook, like any truck will get you from here to there if you know how to drive, they just do it a little differently from each other.

[STEbbq]

I have to admit I sighed when I saw the original post bumped again and a certain member (thankfully now former member) highlighted.