User Reviews

After a smoky, 4th of July feast at a friend's house, my wife and I had to get a smoker. We only had two primary requirements when looking for a smoker since we have a decent grill. We have a gas line on the patio, so that requirement was second to price. We wanted to stay under $200 on our first unit and go from there. 

We read reviews on the similar Brinkman propane unit, but we noticed that it has about half the cooking area as the Master Forge. No brainer! 

I hooked it up with our old propane tank, seasoned it and smoked some Italian sausages. That first time a lot of smoke seeped out the doors, but after doing a couple more smokes the smoke stopped coming out of the door nearly as much. I assume after a couple of months, the smoke seep will be reduced to a very acceptable amount. 

Since Master Forge doesn't offer a gas conversion kit, I bought a Charmglow kit and found a reducer nozzle in the water heater section of Lowes. Works perfectly. My gas is just not as strong as the propane, but I can still get the smoker up to about 300 degrees. 

Natural gas smoker for under $160.00! Worth every penny!

I've smoked spare ribs, meat loaf and baby back ribs on this smoker...The spare ribs is the winner hands down.  Will be smoking my 1st whole chicken in a few days.  Yes, it leaks smoke when you get the 1st burst of smoke but after a while it'll settle down and will smoke mostly through the smoke stack...when you add more wood chips don't over load the chip pan and it does fine.  LOL

I brought this smoker after researching on the web and looking at a friends GOSM smoker.  The price was better for this one and it would be a good beginning smoker.  The smoker was easy to put together.  My wife and I assembled it in less than an hour.  I originally thought the metal was thin, but it is no thinner than the GOSM of my friend.  Everything fit well except the water bowl rack is lower on on side, which does not affect the smoker's use.  I seasoned the smoker and smoked some ribs using the 3-2-1 method.  Both doors leak some smoke, but I will fix this soon with some type of heat resistant gasket material.  The thermometer  is off by 50 degrees to hot.  I have also smoked a brisket and pork shoulder since the ribs.  I do not like the chip box, but I have been using chips, I feel small chunks will do a better job of smoking.  I will use chunks as soon as I use all of the chips I have.  I have been using foil pouches and I get a TBS, but not much smoke ring.  You also have to refill several times on the brisket smoke.  Propane usage was very good as I only used one half bottle of a 20 lbs tank for the ribs, brisket, pork, another bunch of ribs, and some fatties.  I did alot of research on this forum and others before buying, I thank everyone here for their help in my smoking endevors.  I would buy this smoker again and I would recommend it as a good beginning smoker.

Just completed my 4th smoke (9 hrs).  One more may be possble before bottle needs changing.  The small 15,000 Btu burner is efficient (by design for the application), but allows a broad usable temperature range.  Unit will sustain temps as low as 170 degrees (or maybe lower) or a high as 400+.  Therefore, lower temps for smoking fish or jerky may be possible...or higher temps for baking up some biscuits, a few pies, etc.

This smoker is comparable to a friend's heavier smoker I used, but was surprised by the lighter construction of this one.  Heat retention during cooler weather may be a concern.  Will find out.  Also, will it stand up to the test of time or will rust take it in a few years?  Water pan is small.  Chip box is NOT cast and appears flimsy.  Mine has warped a bit so the pan no longer sits flat when suspended in the rack supports.

I was dissappointed that a verticle rib stand I'd purchased from Lowe's is too wide to fit inside the cabinet.  Didn't do a cabinet size comparison when purchasing, but may be something to consider.  

Unit does leak smoke heavily from around the doors.  Additionally, the door thermometer reads 60 degrees too hot, as proven with readings from a conventional oven thermometer and a digital.

Temp control is by monitoring/adjusting the easy to use control valve every half hour to an hour once temp stabilizes in a happy zone.  Once there, temperature swings are slow to progress and, if temp creeps up or down, only a slight adjustment required. 

I plan some upgrades:

1. Higher quality door thermometer

2. Fiberglass oven door gaskets, although his might actually negate the flexibility of lower temp range usage.

3. (maybe) Incorporate a throttle action gas control thermostat for precise temp control (an expensive item costing far more than the smoker itself). 

4. Conversion to natural gas.  Manufacturer doesn't offer this option and unit's design isn't condusive to easily doing so . However, I plan to do my own conversion (I'm in the commercial cooking equipment repair trade). 

This is easy to use, the temp stays consistent.  Very efficient, so far I've got about 25 hours on a tank.  If my calcualations are correct I should have about an hour left.

The onyl problems I've had is I believe due to the lightweight construction.  The handle on the top door broke the other day while I was attempting to bend it back into position.  I'm not sure how it got bent, but with 3 kids you never know.  I will be calling them for a replacement this week.

I have used it about a half dozen times with excellent results.  I have no problems with it and am keeping up with all the pros websites and just yesterday smoked a 13 pound turkey with excellent results.  Very happy with this smoker and I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

This is my first "real" smoker - purchased a cheap charcoal one yeras ago which was a pain in the butt - could not keep the temperature regulated!  The Master Forge is AWESOME...has a short learning curve.  Holds a temperature well, sips propane, and is easy to keep clean.  I have only smoked corn, chicken, a korean short ribs so far....but everything has turned out great!  Would highly recommend it!!

I purchased this smoker based on the reviews I have seen. It's light weight can be a plus or a minus. It's easy to move around but the thin metal doesn't retain any heat. It does help that you can work with the chip pan and water pan without opening the main door. I did install fiberglass tape around the big door to minimize leakage.....it stopped.

Of course the supplied thermometer reads 40-50 degrees higher than the actual chamber temp. A cheap walmart oven thermometer solved that problem.

The first propane tank (20#) ran for nearly 28 hours before I changed it out. I weighed it right before I started smoking a boston butt figuring I could run it out.... 21.5 lbs - 16.9 lb tw = 4.6 lbs of propane....I ran the tank for 5 hours and I started to get nervous so I put the spare on. I weighed the first tank again and it weighed 20 lbs.......28 hours of smoking on roughly 17 lbs of propane is pretty darn good in my book. That's an overall average of roughly 1.65 hrs per pound of propane. The last 5 hours of use only consumed 1.5 #.......go figure.

I had no problem making smoke or keeping the temp stable. Using wood chunks cut into manageable pieces works excellent. The water pan could be a little bigger. I needed to refill it 3 times during an 8 hour smoke.

Having just started to learn how to do this I am not even close to knowing the process. But I feel this smoker can be used to hone ones skills. I'll graduate to something larger when I feel comfortable.

Well, I'm brand new to smoking and this is the first smoker I've ever owned.  Just got it and it was pretty easy to use.  The ribs I did came out very good (not that I don't still need to improve).  The doors leak a lot of smoke and are something I need to fix.  But other than that I have no major complaints.