- Jun 21, 2014
- 22
- 27
Well I bit the bullet and bought one. While I was doing my research I couldn't find much information on this smoker. There are quite a few YouTube videos, but they are all by the manufacturer or people that I think are affiliated with them. I don't mind this, but it's not what I would call an objective review. So, I figured me, regular guy looking for a smoker, might post something here in hopes that Google will crawl it and others looking for info can find it easily. I won't go into the details on why I picked this one, suffice it to say I wanted something I thought would last, would hold a temp well, and had enough room to cook for large gatherings.
A bit of a background on my smoking first. I started with a small offset smoker. Used it, sometimes with wood, sometimes charcoal, and had mixed results. It was small and seemed I couldn't get the fire "just right", either too big or too small and this led to less than desirable results. I ended up getting a Masterbuilt Pro gas smoker and have had it many, many years and got my go-to ribs down to a science on there. I do have to watch because it seems it's either creeping up, or creeping down on the temp so I was always fiddling with it to keep it where I like to smoke (225° but reality was 225°-275°). Used wood chips and replenished them often to get a nice smoke flavor. My smoker finally gave up the ghost and although I tried to repair it I did see the bottom was rusted out, etc. So I started looking, and really I don't know what the best bet was I was open to a vertical charcoal smoker, a kamado style, but didn't want another offset. Plus I have a nice grill so I only wanted a smoker. I ruled out the Kamado because I don't think on the few times a year (pre-covid) that I had large gatherings it would be large enough for my needs. I ruled out the charcoal because my original budget was sub $1000 and I couldn't find one that I liked for under $3500. Yes, the Smoke Daddy blew my budget a bit.
The Pellet Pro Vertical was out of stock for several months, and I have been sorely missing smoking meat! I had emailed and talked to Dan a couple times anxious to put in my order. Very helpful. He finally called less than 2 weeks ago to tell me they were in stock, and I put in my order. Also got the Big Kahuna cold smoker because I have never used a pellet smoker and some internet post question whether pellet smokers can give a good smoke flavor. Just in case, I wanted to be able to add it. Well, I think it was about 8-days from order to arrival. Shipping from Illinois to Florida was 3 days. They shipped it on Wednesday, and it showed up on Friday. I can say this, it is packaged WELL. Very well. I would venture to say if you order one and it comes damaged it was hit by a Mac truck or something.
I spent last night assembling it because I was quite desirous of using it. Putting it together wasn't hard, I did spend a couple hours doing it but I took my time. I have not installed the recirculating fan yet, but will. I will do that the first time I smoke some cheese. I can say it is built very well, and the size is astounding. I have a picture of it next to my old Masterbuilt. I could probably cook 20+ racks of ribs. My masterbuilt I had to cut them in half, and could get 6 racks in there which was fine but not the best. Really I could double that if I bought 4 more racks since these racks are 7-8" apart and I could do ribs with half that clearance. I could probably do 16 pork butts without problem.
Today I seasoned it. I was worried it would be quirky or somehow not be as simple as I had it in my mind. My one time using it has been a breeze and I am happy. I set to 350° per the instructions and it got up to temp and held it there, spot on according to the pellet PID controller temp guage. I am also using a Thermopro 4-probe Bluetooth temp monitor, with one probe up high and one down low. They read 343 and 344 respectively. The temps never fluctuated more than 1-degree once it was up to temp, the graph was amazingly flat. Wow. This is what I was hoping for. I will get some boiling and freezing water and see which one need to be calibrated but really it doesn't matter to me it holds temp and I can adjust if necessary. I did note there was tape on the Pellet Pro probe during assembly that I took off but I did not clean it with alcohol or anything like that. There may be residue that needs to be cleaned up but either way I am happy.
Tomorrow I'm going to try some ribs. That was always my favorite. One of the big reasons for getting a pellet grill was the desire to add briskets and other long smoke time meats to my menu. Given a brisket can run 16+ hours, if I want to serve dinner at 4pm, that means starting about 10pm night before (includes resting time). There's no way I can stay up all night, then enjoy myself the next day at a gathering, I need a smoker that I can set and forget. I don't mind waking up at 6am or something to check, but I can't babysit all night. So, once I can convince myself this thing is a steady as I've heard (and as todays test indicates) I will buy a packer and give it a go.
And that's it for now. I will update this periodically. I couldn't find much when searching so hopefully someone else coming along will find this useful. In the mean time, below is the only real pic I have of it now, next to what it is replacing. I appreciate the heavy duty castors, I will be able to roll it in and out of my lanai for smokes easily.
- Joe
A bit of a background on my smoking first. I started with a small offset smoker. Used it, sometimes with wood, sometimes charcoal, and had mixed results. It was small and seemed I couldn't get the fire "just right", either too big or too small and this led to less than desirable results. I ended up getting a Masterbuilt Pro gas smoker and have had it many, many years and got my go-to ribs down to a science on there. I do have to watch because it seems it's either creeping up, or creeping down on the temp so I was always fiddling with it to keep it where I like to smoke (225° but reality was 225°-275°). Used wood chips and replenished them often to get a nice smoke flavor. My smoker finally gave up the ghost and although I tried to repair it I did see the bottom was rusted out, etc. So I started looking, and really I don't know what the best bet was I was open to a vertical charcoal smoker, a kamado style, but didn't want another offset. Plus I have a nice grill so I only wanted a smoker. I ruled out the Kamado because I don't think on the few times a year (pre-covid) that I had large gatherings it would be large enough for my needs. I ruled out the charcoal because my original budget was sub $1000 and I couldn't find one that I liked for under $3500. Yes, the Smoke Daddy blew my budget a bit.
The Pellet Pro Vertical was out of stock for several months, and I have been sorely missing smoking meat! I had emailed and talked to Dan a couple times anxious to put in my order. Very helpful. He finally called less than 2 weeks ago to tell me they were in stock, and I put in my order. Also got the Big Kahuna cold smoker because I have never used a pellet smoker and some internet post question whether pellet smokers can give a good smoke flavor. Just in case, I wanted to be able to add it. Well, I think it was about 8-days from order to arrival. Shipping from Illinois to Florida was 3 days. They shipped it on Wednesday, and it showed up on Friday. I can say this, it is packaged WELL. Very well. I would venture to say if you order one and it comes damaged it was hit by a Mac truck or something.
I spent last night assembling it because I was quite desirous of using it. Putting it together wasn't hard, I did spend a couple hours doing it but I took my time. I have not installed the recirculating fan yet, but will. I will do that the first time I smoke some cheese. I can say it is built very well, and the size is astounding. I have a picture of it next to my old Masterbuilt. I could probably cook 20+ racks of ribs. My masterbuilt I had to cut them in half, and could get 6 racks in there which was fine but not the best. Really I could double that if I bought 4 more racks since these racks are 7-8" apart and I could do ribs with half that clearance. I could probably do 16 pork butts without problem.
Today I seasoned it. I was worried it would be quirky or somehow not be as simple as I had it in my mind. My one time using it has been a breeze and I am happy. I set to 350° per the instructions and it got up to temp and held it there, spot on according to the pellet PID controller temp guage. I am also using a Thermopro 4-probe Bluetooth temp monitor, with one probe up high and one down low. They read 343 and 344 respectively. The temps never fluctuated more than 1-degree once it was up to temp, the graph was amazingly flat. Wow. This is what I was hoping for. I will get some boiling and freezing water and see which one need to be calibrated but really it doesn't matter to me it holds temp and I can adjust if necessary. I did note there was tape on the Pellet Pro probe during assembly that I took off but I did not clean it with alcohol or anything like that. There may be residue that needs to be cleaned up but either way I am happy.
Tomorrow I'm going to try some ribs. That was always my favorite. One of the big reasons for getting a pellet grill was the desire to add briskets and other long smoke time meats to my menu. Given a brisket can run 16+ hours, if I want to serve dinner at 4pm, that means starting about 10pm night before (includes resting time). There's no way I can stay up all night, then enjoy myself the next day at a gathering, I need a smoker that I can set and forget. I don't mind waking up at 6am or something to check, but I can't babysit all night. So, once I can convince myself this thing is a steady as I've heard (and as todays test indicates) I will buy a packer and give it a go.
And that's it for now. I will update this periodically. I couldn't find much when searching so hopefully someone else coming along will find this useful. In the mean time, below is the only real pic I have of it now, next to what it is replacing. I appreciate the heavy duty castors, I will be able to roll it in and out of my lanai for smokes easily.
- Joe
Last edited: