Best Smoke Hollow 30162E Electric Smoker Deals

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List Price: $219.99
Sale Price: $199.99
Today's Bonus: 9% Off

I purchased this smoker from a large mid-western home center retailer. I am an amazon.com devotee but this time I saved $50 elsewhere. Anyway... I've used offset and bullet-type smokers with charcoal and also a Weber kettle-style grill set up as a smoking unit. All of them have required some diligence at keeping the coals and temperature just right. I've only used this smoker once as I just purchased it to cook a rack of pork ribs and a 12lb brisket. I used one application of wood chips in the box and the food came out tasting wonderful. The brisket is perhaps the best I've had. The temperature was very easy to modulate. Thus far I'm impressed. This unit works on electricity outdoors so you should have a GFCI protected circuit powering the device with a heavy duty extension cord to get it away from your eaves. I found the outside of the smoker to be cool enough to touch bare handed even while doing the initial seasoning at 400 degrees.

Update: I used this smoker over the winter in Indiana even while the temperature outside was in the 20's. It still got up to temp easily and worked like a champ. I feel like I'm cheating because I barely have to do any work to cook ribs, brisket, shoulder, etc...

Update 2 June 2012: I've been using this smoker nearly 2 years, about 1 or 2 times monthly. It still works great and is generally rust-free. The element is probably the only thing that will need replaced, and it seems to be a long way off from that.

Update 3 September 2013: The smoker has lost a little off the top-end in terms of it's highest achievable temperature, but it maxes out at about 275º. The box is in pretty good shape still, as well as all the racks and interior surfaces. I just smoked 10lbs of pork shoulder the other day and it was generally regarded as some of the best we've ever had.

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I have used this unit for 2 years now and am very happy. I had several of the barrel type electric smokers, and I found them hard to maintain temperature on. The weak part on electric units is the controller burns out after about a year, I have had 2 do it almost exactly at a year. This unit the controller snaps in to the element so firm that It is almost is hard to do, but this appears to prevent the burn out caused by arcing between the controller and the heating element. I smoke year around and I live in a state where it occasionaly gets cold, and I have set this unit on 160 and checked the temperature prior to going to bed and again when I first get up and it never is off by more than a couple of degrees. This was on a night when it got down to 20 degrees. The temperature control is fantastic. The only problem I have discovered so far is that because it is a tower smoker if you are smoking fatty meats as the fat melts it falls on the wood and stops the smoking. This is the nature of all tower smokers, and I have found if you just put a piece of aluminum foil over the wood the grease runs around the wood and everything is fine. Live and learn alas there is no perfect piece of machinery, but this is a very good smoker.

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I looked at a number of electric smokers before settling on this model since the weak spot of most electric smokers seems to be the heating element and this particular model lets you replace the controller and element. As other reviewers write it holds a constant temperature very well. But using it as directed I have yet to get any meaningful smoke out of it. The taste of the food reflects the little smoke output. The instruction manual says that the shavings do not need to be soaked in water but soaked or not it really doesn't "smoke" very much. After a 4-5 hour cook at 230 degrees the original small bunch of wood chips placed in the wood cup maybe turns a bit darker but never burns or smokes. If it weren't for the lack of smoke it would be a great product but it's kind of hard to call it a good smoker.

Update: Since a number of people reported having the same problem I had with too little smoke I contacted the seller by email. They got back to me within a day and instructed me to completely fill the wood chip container and place it into the smoker (leave the water container out for now) and then heat the unit on high to 300 degrees for an hour to get the smoke going then turn the temperature down to cooking temp. I use small chips so within 15-20 minutes at 300 degrees the smoke was coming out of every crack and opening in the smoker. I only gave a half hour start up then dialed down as the amount of smoke was really impressive. I put in two one pound chicken breasts and dialed back to 230-240. A smaller but constant flow of smoke continued after reducing the temperature. I needed to refill the wood chips after about 1-1.5 hours and briefly turned the heat dial back to high until the smoke started again then dialed back to the desired temp. The cooking went very smoothly and the temperature, even with turning up and the back to cook temperature, was rock solid. The chicken was excellent. Looking forward to trying the smoker again with meats that require lower cooking temperatures. Note that after I finished cooking today the wood chips continued to smoke until they burned out, about 20-30 minutes. It tells me that to smoke salmon or other meats that require lower temps you've got to get the wood burning well before turning down the heat but it should work. Given this update I'm upgrading my rating to 5 stars it was so easy to start the smoke and then regulate the cooking temperature. Plenty of smoke!

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My first experience with this smoker (or any smoker for that matter) was good. A few negative things to mention. . . . even on level ground (yes, I used a level to verify) the drippings from the meat do not really drain into the drip pan. They kept running out of the smoker and onto the front two legs. They should have sloped the bottom part of the smoker much better to prevent this. I'm not really happy with the handle, it's held on by a single nut on the inside of the smoker which loosens easily and needs to be tightened often. When assembling be careful not to tighten the bolt/nuts on the smoke release vent too much. You'll want it just snug enough to hold in place. I was tightening (as stated in the directions) and before I knew it I had bent the back interior part of the smoker just around the smoke release vent (I did bend it back into place). Two of the three cooking racks are slide out removable (which is very handy). The non-slide out rack is held in place by 4 screws which make it a hassle to remove if you need to clean it. The bottom rack is held in with 4 screws and holds the water pan and the wood chip pan. . . . it would be nice if it were easier to remove so that you can easily access the interior two nuts that hold the heat element in the smoker. The heat element needs to be removed when spraying the interior with Pam, as the directions state not to coat the heat source with vegetable oil spray. A few positive things. . . . I smoked two pork shoulders over the weekend and they were delicious. I felt like the temperature control was pretty stable throughout the entire smoke. When I opened the smoker to check water, wood chips, and meat temp it lost most of its heat of course but then seemed to easily come back up to desired temp within just a matter of minutes. I would consider my negative comments minor inconveniences and would certainly recommend this smoker. Keep in mind though that this is my first time smoking and don't have anything to compare it to. I really look forward to using it again.

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This is one heck of a smoker! Seems that there is nothing that this thing cant handle. I can smoke 8 chickens in this thing no trouble at all. It rivals the performance of my father in laws 800 dollar smoker. Love the fact that the element is replaceable. I would buy this product again!