Smoke Hollow 30

[langemr]

Hey all,
Was wondering if anyone here had the Smoke Hollow 30 Electric Smoker Model 30168E. We purchased one about a month ago and so far have used it three times. The problem is I can't get a good smoke flavor at all from the smoker with any meat I try to smoke.
The chip pan is rather small so it doesn't hold alot of chips and I tried a few different things like a pop can and a wire basket which was a bad idea cause a fire broke out. I should of saw that coming eh.
Does anyone have this smoker and have any ideas?
Thanks

 

[newb]

I have one similar (yours appears to be newer).

Couple questions:
1) Does your chip pan have holes in the bottom of it?
2) You using chips or chunks? Chips will work better .
3) What are your temps? The temp gage that came with mine was off like 50 degrees. they replaced it and it was still off 30 degress. If I'm at 250 it smokes OK.

What I did to make it work:
1) Drilled 9 holes in the bottom of my chip pan and it worked better. Tossed a couple of lit charcoal in the chip pan as well.
2) Drilled a hole in my smoker back so i can insert a thermo probes into the smoker through a watertight fitting. One measures the smoker chamber temps and the others the meat.
3) Drilled another hole to attach a hose for my external smoke generator....this let me throw the chip pan away and gave a lot more smoke flavor.
4) Built and utilized a PID for temperature control and didn't like the results so I just adjust the control by the element and read the internal temp probe.

I'll try to take a picture of my red-nek-i-fied smoker and get it on here for ya later tonight.

 

[langemr]

This is what my chip pan looks like. It has a heavy duty lid with long holes that i assume is supposed to help keep the meat juice out but it still gets in there. I use chips. Non soaked and they usually last about an hour and a half before they are burnt up.
My temps usually differ. While i set the temp and it reads 225 at the thermo at the top it is actually 250 down below so I try to keep meats at the very top. Also installed a thermo probe in it to help with checking the temps.
I think I may try to drill bigger holes through the chip pan also to see if this helps. An external smoke generator may be a decent idea to. I might have to look into one of those.
Thanks for the feedback.