New user, looking to upgrade

[cpl rampage]

Hi All, long time lurker. Located in the Boston area. I have been smoking things on my Weber 22" for a long while now, but I find myself not being able to do it as often as I like, just because it takes a fair bit of babysitting to keep the temps and smoke levels consistent. I am not one to be able to let go and relax (my wife says I have a problem haha) and almost always have some sort of project going on at the house or elsewhere, kind of stopping me from doing long smokes all that often.

I am thinking about upgrading to either an electric or pellet smoker. I am leaning towards a pellet unit, partly because you can get large number of hours out of even some of the smaller hopper units, and because I read the taste of an electric smoker is not quite the same as pellet or traditional smoker. That said, pellet grills get seriously pricy. I am not really looking to spend over $500. I don't need anything big, she doesn't eat meat, and even the smaller pellet units have enough space for me to make more than I can now, which is more than enough for the small gatherings we would have.

My problem is, on almost every brand/model I look at, there are some pretty mixed reviews (mostly looking on amazon for reviews even if I might buy local), with people saying the smoke is inconsistent, temps are inconsistent, they don't feed pellets well, horrible customer service when they do break, or in some cases straight up catch fire.

What are peoples experiences with units bought recently? I have also read quality of brands that used to be good (trager for example), is dropping and can be a mixed bag. I have looked at Traeger, Pitboss, Camp Chef, ZGrills, Char-griller, maybe some others. I know all reviews on amazon can't be trusted, especially the positive ones, but some of the negative ones are a little terrifying haha.

If you were buying a small pellet grill today, under $500, what would you get?

 

[ravenclan]

I bought the PitBoss 700 from Walmart and I use it a lot. I have done more over night smokes then I can count in it. I like it as you said a "set and forget" unit and all you have to do is make sure you do not run out of pellets.

On the other hand I also have an Analog electric Masterbuilt series and it has no moving parts and is a beast. I think it does just as good if not better then the pellet smoker as far as taste.

 

[smokerjim]

I have a pitboss 1000 and a mes 30 , both work good but I get better smoke taste using the mes with the amnps tray, if you go the pellet route I would look into the amnps tube for extra smoke especially at higher temps. Welcome to smf.

 

[SmokingUPnorth]

For under $500 I’d recommend a MES40. Big enough to do full racks of ribs, multiple racks, and pork butts. You can add a pellet tray to get more smoke flavor and not have to worry about even adding wood chips. Pretty much set and forget

 

[Winterrider]

I agree with the MES 40, but I would take it one step further. Add a PID controller and a tube or tray with the mailbox mod.and you will have one of the best smokers out there. Granted you still won't have the smoke flavor of a stick burner but will be a "very" versatile unit.

 

[SmokinEdge]

I have a Yoder 640, but were I to do it again , I would look hard at the Masterbuilt gravity charcoal unit. Take a look.
https://www.thebarbecuelab.com/masterbuilt-gravity-series/

 

[noboundaries]

I started smoking on the Kettle. Had the same babysitting issues as you. My wife said "Take $2000 and buy anything you want for Christmas." Did all kinds of research and kept coming back to what I knew best; charcoal. I REALLY wanted a cabinet smoker but all the ones I wanted busted the budget, especially with shipping to CA.

Bought the 22.5" WSM and stopped looking for anything else. As my wife and I were sitting in a movie while the smoker chugged along at home, she says to me, "Thanks for giving me my weekends back."

I later added a DigiQ DX2 fan that I quickly outgrew and no longer use because the WSM is pretty hands-off with the right charcoal. I do overnight smokes and sleep like an old wrinkled baby. The WSM has a little learning curve, which is accelerated by all the owners here. It's just me and my wife, but with the 22.5" I don't have to trim racks of ribs or full packers.

You are familiar with charcoal. Just saying.

 

[SmokingUPnorth]

I also have the WSM and after a few cooks it’s almost as easy as a electric

 

[jmusser]

Welcome to SMF. I had a reg old electric which was fine. My Bradley with Auber makes an overnight smoke as easy as set the high/low temp on my Inkbird probes. Feeds auto, cold smokes, can set steps, cook to temp, etc. Downside, paying for pucks. I believe it is my best set it and forget it model! Just my 2 cents.

 

[cpl rampage]

Hi all, sorry it took so long to respond, for some reason the forum has not been loading for the past week or so. Looking over responses, I am reconsidering electric smokers with the AMNPS tray. That seems to be adequate for what I am looking to do. Do you still use the wood chip tray in addition to the AMNPS? The other nice thing is if I find the smoke output lacking, I could go with that mailbox mod, no stranger to fabrication. and I could always upgrade to a better PID controller, there seems to be lots of recommendations and how to's on that here.

That masterbuilt gravity series is really interesting, I really like the idea of being able to sear at really high temperatures after sous viding a steak etc, but I can also just do that on top of the charcoal starter. Unfortunately the reviews on it are a little bit of a mixed bag, saying it works well but long term quality is questionable? Also, to get the smoking action, I would still need to be manually adding chips/pelets/chunks etc.