Smoker opinions? Follow up and review

Another plus with the masterbuilt is you can use whatever chips you want. That is what steered me towards them. Bradley uses their fancy biscuits.

Thanks,Craig! I have,and use Rons recipe. That,and a habanero recipe that gets good reviews are my go-tos. Would love to see your notes though. I gift a lot of it so presentation counts...sounds like smoker nerd advice is something I can use!

LOVE my Masterbuilt!

I absolutely love my Masterbuilt 30". It works great on brisket and ribs plus does an excellent job smoking fish. I am very OCD about fish smoking though. Like most cooking devices, it has different heat "zones" so I utilize three different thermometers and rotate racks while smoking fish. I also start it out slow at about 120 degrees for an hour or two so you don't get the white goo coming out of the flesh. I then bump the temp up every once it awhile until the fish hits 142. I let it stay there for a few minutes. For thick fillets, it can take me up to 8 hours to get there.

It must be decent because friends and several co-workers bring me fish to smoke.

It is well insulated so It works great in the winter when I do most of my fish smoking.

http://www.amazon.com/Masterbuilt-20070910-30-Inch-Electric-Controller/dp/B00104WRCY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1462506084&sr=8-3&keywords=masterbuilt

 Thanks for bringing up the "white goo" ,Craig. ..I also dislike and had problems with in the Little Chiefs. Assumed it was a too much heat thing but hard to tell the temps in those things.
 To be clear,you are getting 120 to start on the digital readout and then 142 on a probe on the fish?

If you start smoking oily fish like salmon at a fairly high temperature, like 150-170 degrees, you'll cook white "boogers" out of the meat, which is not aesthetically pleasing.  So like Craig, I start smoking at a low temperature and step the temperature up every hour.  Here's my process:  I take the fillets out of the brine, slap them on racks in front of a fan, and dry them for an hour or so until the meat is tacky, not wet, to the touch.  This is called "developing a pedicle," and you do it because wet fish doesn't take up smoke well. Then I stick the fillets in the smoker for half an hour at 100 degrees to start warming them up and to finish developing a pedicle, and then start smoking at 130 for an hour, 150 for an hour, and 170 until the internal temperature of the fish reaches 145 for at least half an hour, and the fish has a desirable level of flakiness and dryness.  Because some portions of a smoker will be hotter and/or smokier than other portions, every hour I rotate the trays from top to bottom and spin them 180 degrees in the smoker.  I usually only apply smoke for 2-3 hours. Thin trout or kokanee fillets may be done after an hour at 170.  Thicker fillets may take several hours at 170.

Developing a pedicle on some lake trout fillets in front of a fan.  I usually cut fillets this size into chunks 3"-4" wide, which makes a better sized portion, helps the smoke get at the meat, and helps them dry out faster, and vacuum pack and freeze each chunk separately, but in this case I was making some "party-sized" whole fillets.

My smoker inventory includes two Chief's (big and little), a Bradley, a Green Mountain Grill pellet smoker, and an A-MAZE-N Smoker (tray). 

I don't think there's a do-all smoker, and there are several different options that will give better results than one smoker can give.   

The chiefs are fine if you follow some simple temperature rules and make sure the meat hits minimum recommended temperature in the required timeframe.   You might need to finish off your product in an oven at low temp with the Chiefs.  But the same can be said for any non-insulated smoker.   Chiefs work best on fish, jerky, or sausage as they are low-temperature meats.  Chiefs can get very hot in the summer, and can be difficult to get to temperature in the winter.  I use the boxes they came in as an insulator in the winter.   

I've had the big GMG for a few years now, and it does a great job on meats that need more temperature.  It's minimum setting is 150, and in the summer you're chamber temp will be quite a bit higher.   In the winter, it holds temp pretty good as it simply pours more wood to the fire until the setpoint is hit.   One great thing about the GMG is that with quality pellets it puts off that perfect thin blue smoke that you want when smoking anything.   Despite what is reported in online reviews about the GMG (and most pellet smokers), the GMG will get hot enough to sear meats.   My chamber and grates get up to over 500 in the summer on high, and just slightly lower than that in the winter.  If I had the insulating blanket that is available for it I don't doubt it would get quite a bit hotter.   The GMG is awesome on ribs, briskets, hamburgers, pizza's, tri-tip, and most anything.  It does get a bit warm in the summer for fish though. 

My favorite smoker is my newest one.  The A-MAZE-N smoker is simply awesome.   It is the only method I've found that won't get too hot for cheese (though again, summer temps in the Tri-Cities are usually hot enough to melt cheese).   I use this smoker primarily in the GMG chamber, after I remove the drip tray and place it at the very bottom of the pot.   I use it a lot to pre-smoke almost everything I grill any more.  I have a Weber gas grill that I pre-heat, and  after I pull the cold meat off the smoker after an hour or so I toss it on the grill to finish it off.   

My neighbor uses his Treager, and we run any meat we have ready to cook over as soon as we smell it warming up to have him add it to the grill. Anyone that attended the TBMD last year can speak up as to his skill. Or anyone that had the brisket at the clam dig on the 30 th , if you haven't tried his cooking yet be here on the 21st for the potluck.

I have a Bradley.
 My first smokers were little chiefs as well, after using the electric smoker I am spoiled.
 I have never gotten the unit to hit 300* and that is fine with me as most of my meat runs at 225*-250*.
 I also use a cardboard box and rack added to the top of the unit for cheeses while smoking meat below.
 The pucks are easy to find and not too pricey for what you get in smoke time from them.
  I also use it to smoke Salmon and Tuna prior to canning, just a couple of hours of smoke on those as the flavor intensifies during the pressure canning.

My homemade smoker does a great job,  50 gallon tank and a 3/8 steel firebox. The only trouble is keeping the temperature in the right range on a windy day.  But the alder smoked salmon that comes out is great.

The white boogers are called "albumin" and you can only really minimize it, not prevent it completely. Brining helps.

http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/cooking-science/2012/12/what-is-that-weird-white-stuff-on-cooked-salmon-its-albumin-and-we-discovered-how-to-minimize-it/

My $.02...

The photos are silver salmon, but the text below mentions sockeye...both smoke well for me with this process.

My Masterbuilt electric smoker (from Lowes) will fit about 10 prepared sockeye fillets on the racks at a time. (Masterbuilt JMSS 800-Watt Electric Vertical Smoker.) There are a lot of manufacturers with similar products, Cabela’s and Bass Pro have theirs, and as long as it will smoke at low temps it will work. The Little Chief and Big Chief smokers are inexpensive, but cannot smoke at lower temps.

Dry Brine Mix:
3 1/2 cups brown sugar, 1 1/2 cups kosher salt, 2 tablespoons garlic salt, 2 tablespoons garlic powder and 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper (more or less according to your taste.)

Prepare thawed filets… (I cut fillet into two pieces just behind the row of pin bones.)

Slice down along both sides of pin bones and remove that strip or pull all pin bones with tweezers or needle-nosed pliers. (Cutting the thin strip out is a lot faster.)
Cut salmon into strips about a half inch wide then remove from skin. Or you can remove the meat from the skin first and then slice into 1/2 inch strips, but cutting the meat into strips prior to removing from the skin is more efficient for me.

Remove gray/brown (fat) layer from strips (this is where the heavy “fishy” flavor comes from)

Place strips into a container (that will fit in your fridge) in layers; cover each layer with brine mixture as you go.  Every piece of fish should be touching the mixture.

Brine in the fridge for at least 48 hours flipping the strips over in the container after the first 24 hours. If you have a container that doesn’t leak, you could just flip the whole thing over.

Remove strips from brine, being careful not to break them up.  Rinse well under cold water and place on baking sheet, pat dry with paper towels.

Place on smoker racks that have been sprayed with cooking spray to dry for 2 to 4 hours on counter. (I try to arrange thinner pieces on one rack, which I will then place in the top slot in the smoker further away from the heat so they don’t dry out too much.) Use a fan to speed the drying process. 

The longer it is dried, the more jerky-like your final product will be. We like ours to have a little more moisture.

During the drying, the fish will glaze up and develop some shininess and become a little sticky, this is called forming the “pellicle” which is part of the preservation process and helps the smoke adhere.

Pre-heat smoker the last 30 minutes of drying.

When they look right, place racks into smoker.
 
I cold smoke for 2 hours at the smoker’s lowest heat setting (mine will go as low as 100 degrees) then turn the heat up to 170 for another hour making sure the temp gets up to 165 -170 degrees for a minimum of half an hour. Add more wood chips after the first hour and again after turning up the heat. (If I don’t see smoke coming out of the smoker at low heat, I bump it up to 115 for the second hour.)

I like to use alder wood chips (use the finer shredded chips sold in bags for about $3.50 at Walmart), apple and cherry also do well, but alder is our favorite.

ENJOY!!!

Pin bones are easy to pull out of fillets if you wait until after the fish is smoked, because the ends of the bones will protrude from the smoked fillet, and they slide right out when you grab them with tweezers.  All you need is a pair of tweezers with a flat or angled end 1/8th inch to 3/16th inch wide, which you can buy at a drugstore.

Pulling the pin bones makes the fish easier to eat, and if you vacuum pack and freeze your smoked fish, which I do, it also prevents the pin bones from puncturing the vacuum bag.  With small smoked kokanee fillets, rather than trying to pull out the tiny pin bones, which are still big enough to puncture a vacuum bag, I run the back or edge of a spoon along the line of pin bones to smash them over or push them down into the smoked fish.

Just to add to the mix, I have an Smoke Hollow 30162E (electric) and Weber 731001 Smokey Mountain Cooker (charcoal). I use the Smoke Hollow for chicken and fish (apple and alder wood); the Smokey Mountain for red meat (cherry, mesquite, hickory wood). This allows you to build up a flavor profile and not have fish that tastes like meat or meat that tastes like fish, or so the internet smoke blogs would have me believe.

The Smokey Mountain is awesome for ribs, roasts, etc. But I wouldn't try fish on it, or low temperature smoking in general.

The Smoke Hollow is insulated and does have a temperature adjustment (not digital). It's awesome with chicken and turkey. But low temperature smoking is a pain. The electric element won't smoke wood chips unless you've cranked it to medium/high, so you have to pre-heat it on high to get the smoke going and then ease it down, or smoke with the door cracked open. Either option makes low temp. smoking a major pain.

I've also recently picked up a Smokehouse Smoke Chief Cold Smoke Generator to use in conjunction with the Smoke Hollow. It basically just creates smoke to then pump into something else, so you can cold smoke. This will let me run the lower temps from the Smoke Hollow and just add smoke. Fingers crossed that works.

Just throwing it out there, I another Masterbuilt 30' guy. It's easy, it runs, its insulated really well which keeps the temp consistent. best of all inexpensive. If you watch Cabela's, Bass pro or Sportsman's for sales every now and again you can get the basic model like I have for $165. You can pay more for the remote or window in the door, but my basic unit has a temp probe, timer, digital controls and really easy to run. Works great on chicken, fish, ribs, most anything. If you can only have 1 smoker I would choose this one. Hear is a load of steelhead going in.

Thanks,everyone!
Masterbuilt it is....got some tweaking to do,but yeah......much better than my little chiefs. A batch of fall Chinook in a wet habanero brine...a little"done" but, I like that better than "not done".

Looks delicious.