Smokehouse Products Little Chief Top Load Electric Smoker Reviews

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We got a Little Chief top-load smoker (the only version made back then) for our wedding in 1971. We caught lots of salmon back then, and half of it went into this smoker. Alder wood is best with salmon, and I just finished smoking 3 pounds of it this afternoon. That same little smoker works every time, and should last a few more years, at least. I actually looked into getting another, but decided to use this until the heating element finally quits (it's the original). It's old, dark, and crusty, and I think we've used it over 250 times, but after 41 years of great service, it now is part of the family (a smelly part, though). Happy smoking!

Larry

P.S. Realize that this unit is a smoker, but NOT a cooker. Some meats will need to be cooked in another, hotter, appliance in addition to being smoked with the Little Chief. Salmon, however, does just fine with only smoking. Sometimes I smoke the brined chunks for 6 hours or so. The fish chunks get darkened on the outside, but the interior is mildly smoked, moist and tasty. Other times, I smoke the fish for 12-15 hours. In that case, the fish shrinks in size, gets very dark and rich, and the texture is more chewy. The intense smokey salmon flavor is awesome, but too strong for some. My favorite brine was found online. It contains white wine, soy sauce, brown sugar, onion salt and water. Once you get your new smoker, experiment with different recipes and species. Have fun!

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This past year, I purchased this smoker for my husband for Christmas. The only thing he's smoked in it so far is salmon, but OH MY GOODNESS!!! It tastes amazing! The smoker comes with a little recipe book and it's full of delicious sounding foods that we can't wait to try when the weather gets colder. The smoker is compact and well built. The wood chips that come with it smell amazing even before you burn them. The racks are EASY to clean and if you happen to burn something on them a little Easy Off oven spray does the trick. We invert the box and put it on top of the smoker instead of buying the insulating blanket and it works just fine. No fires, no burned cardboard. It's a trick we learned from my dad who has the same model, only 15 years older.

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The Pro's: It's a nice smoker. It you can smoke a lot of stuff with it. I like how you can reload the wood chips at the bottom, with out taking the lid off and loosing the heat. If you keep the box it came in, the instruction manual gives you advice on how to turn it into a cold smoker. Great for delicate things like smoking hard boiled eggs or just adding smoke flavor. You can cook FISH all the way thru. If you cut meat thin enough, it makes great beef jerky. You can skip the smoking chips and just use this as a dehydrator also.

The Cons: The bad part about this smoker is that the heating element stays at 165 degrees. Which means you can NOT cook steak, or chicken all the way thru. Whole chicken, forget about it. It just does not get hot enough. I smoked a steak for 5 hours, still raw in the middle. You smoke your meats for 3 to 5 hours to get a good smoke flavor, then have to finish it off in the oven or stove. Sometimes juices coming out of the meat kinda washes off some of the smoke flavor. That was the only disappointment for me. This would be the coolest little smoker if it cooked meats all the way thru, but it doesn't. When they advertise this product, they leave this very important fact out for some reason. I wonder why ?

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This is only and I repeat only a smoker. It will not cook meat. I had 4-3.5 pieces of beef on this thing for 10 hours and it was still raw. When I contacted the company, their response was smoke it for 3 trays of chips and then put it in your slow cooker, I should not have wasted the money and when I complained, there was no customer support.

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I purchased this for my husband to smoke salmon. He had a larger smoker, but it did not create the same quality or flavor of the smoked fish as this 'Little Chief'. He loves it and is very pleased with the smoked fish it produces (as well as our friends who love his smoked salmon).