I recently purchased an electric smoker but now I see on this site that most use Masterbuilt...

SSSmoking- I noticed that you mentioned that your Smoke Hollow is not "fancy" looking like the MB units. Fancy is not a contributor to reliability. For my money quality of build and a long warranty is paramount. Should you decide the SH is not for you give the smokers from Smokin-it a serious look. 3 year warranty on the smoker, one year on the digital controller if you get a D model. All stainless steel inside and out including the racks. Fully insulated. They are a lot of smoker for the money.

SSSmoking said:

 
hi all,

I purchased a smoke hollow digital 30 with 1500 watt heating element on "sale" for 140 bucks but now I'm starting to wonder if I should have gotten a masterbuilt instead... seems like most of the electrics here use MB and there is probably a reason why.. I like the 1 yr warranty but its def not as fancy as the MBs... Should I just stick with this or sell it and get into MB now that they are on sale almost everywhere....

see below

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/30in-digital-smoker/prod20412224.ip?searchTerm=608969

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Smoke Hollows are highly rated. The primary complaint seems to be they're delivered damaged. Hopefully yours arrived in perfect shape. As for comparing it to an MES, I can't comment. From the photos, the SH has the edge with a 1500w heating element but it's placed at the bottom of the smoker instead of higher up like the underpowered 800w heating element with the MES 30 Gen 1 (the smoker I own). It's also unprotected while the MES has the heating element inside a metal cover. The wood chips in the MES go beneath the heating element while the wood chip holder on the SH is above it. The water pan on the SH is smaller than that of the MES and also placed farther down than that of the MES. BTW, I never use the water pan. It's not necessary in the MES. I foil it over and use it as another drip tray. The racks are space further apart on the SH--which I like--but there are only 3 usable racks while I can use all 4 on my MES. The one thing I don't like on the SH is that you have to open the door to refill the wood chip holder. With a MES there's a side loader. However, I only use wood pellets in an AMNPS in my smoker. If you were to use on or an A-MAZE-N tube smoker you'd need to remove the water pan and place the tray or tube smoker on left side of the 4th rack. With a pellet tray you'd get up to 11 hours of smoke without opening the door to refill the tray.

But don't regret your smoker choice. From the reviews I've looked at on Amazon and on Home Depot it looks like a lot of owners are happy with it. Hopefully their customer service is as good as MB's.

SSSmoking said:

Actually i can add chips thru the side loader and it has a huge box.

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Ah, silly me! I was looking at the model on Amazon. Just clicked on your link to the one you bought from Sam's Club and there's the side loader. This might be a special design exclusive to SC because even the interior design is different. I'm not finding it anywhere else, including on the SH website. Looks like you got yourself a great deal on a better designed SH smoker.

SSSmoking,

Welcome to SMF.  Where is the exhaust outlet located?  Don't see any holes on the top.  Upper backside?

I just read this year old post and was wondering how the S/H worked out for ya. I'm looking at buying one just like yours. Great buy at $99 after rebate. Let me know how yours went. Thanks