We smoke in two-three feet of snow all winter---just add a half hour or and hour to the time. We don't care for heavily smoked foods. Salmon, cheeses, meats---chicken, pork....finish cast iron or in the oven. Don't care for blue-tooth cooking.

Keep it simple and no need to spend high dollars.

We use electric with a wood chip pan. No fuss at all. I keep an eye on it from the kitchen glass deck door while prepping other meal sides.

Your tastes are very different from ours - I do like heavily smoked foods, and we use mesquite wood chips because that is the flavor we like, which is stronger than other woods. I don't care for smoked cheese.

The blue-tooth will be a convenience that will allow us to be sure that the smoker is at the correct temperature without having to go outside to check it.

I have not smoked salmon in an electric smoker - we always do that in the BGE or in a small BBQ.

One of the main things we smoke is boneless turkey breast, and we buy it ready for smoking at Gelson's market. We also smoke chickens and sausage, but no other types of meat so far. I would smoke pork if Kevin would eat it.

Lars - I Can't help you with the blue tooth but with the temps you will see in the winter I wouldn't worry about an electric smoker not working well during those months. My cheap electric smoker doesn't cook well when the temperature is below 40ish but I still use it to get the smoke for a few hours and then finish in the oven to get the desired internal temperature. I often do that with the Thanksgiving turkey. I usually use my charcoal drum smoker because it can hold more meat.

I only use fruit and nut woods....apple, cherry, hickory, and sometimes oak for brisket (it is pretty strong like mesquite). Not a fan of mesquite smoked meats at all but that is probably what you grew up with in Texas. Here in KC we would have to 'import' it. I think if you smoked pork you would prefer one of the fruit woods over mesquite for that. I can source free hickory and oak on my rural property and all of the apple I want from a friend with a small orchard. My brother has several wild cherry trees on his property in Wisconsin so I always grab some when I visit.

Yes, we had mesquite on our property in Texas, and my father was always having to remove mesquite trees. It's what I'm most familiar with, and I guess it is somewhat nostalgic for me.

I particularly do not like hickory, but I do like oak, and we use that sometimes.

I won't be using the smoker if the temperature is below 60, but that is very rare here during the day, even in the dead of winter.

No advice but HD will deliver to home for free if you don’t care to drive. I put in what I think is your ZIP just to be sure.

We have a blue tooth thermometer that we use when smoking on our very old smoker. . Its made by Weber. It’s at our lake cabin so I don’t know the model. it has a probe for smoker temp as well as probe for meat temp.

Walmart has fast dependable shipping in my experience.

We have a remote thermometer that we use with our BGE, and it will tell us the BBQ temperature as well as the temperature of the meat, but the probe for the meat is off significantly and registers several degrees higher than the actual temperature. However, it does let us know when we need to pay close attention to something that is close to getting done - usually a chicken.

At this point, Kevin is planning to order from Home Depot, since they will deliver. We have other plans this week-end, and so he does not want to drive to Yucca Valley/Joshua Tree, although this is a nice time of year to go there.

Have you looked at pellets such as MAK or Twin Eagles? I've never seen an electric that can actually smoke meat and none I'm aware of can produce a smoke ring in the meat. They also have much wider temp swings, like ±120°f. Most pellets can also do a fairly good job grilling.

We had a Masterbuilt electric smoker before, and we kept it at 250°F for smoking, and the range was about ±20° or less. We soaked mesquite wood chips for this smoker, and the only disadvantage was that we would have to add more chips before a chicken would get done. It worked very well with smoking boneless turkey breast and sausage, which is what we mostly used it for.

I'm not sure what you mean by "smoke ring" as that is not something I was looking for. We will not be smoking beef or pork.

One good thing about the newere Masterbuilt electric smokers is that you can add wood chips through the side without opening the door, which is what we had to do before.

We are already covered for grilling - all we want now is a smoker.

"----I'm not sure what you mean by "smoke ring" as that is not something I was looking for. We will not be smoking beef or pork.---"

Smoke ring is for looks. It does not do much for taste. Don't worry about it..

dcarch

Sounds like you've a good handle on what you want. Just wanted to mention the pellets as many people are surprisingly unaware of them.

The ±20° you saw, was that the probe on the smoker or your own? We've seen significantly greater variation w/ our ThermaData's than what the grills themselves indicate - on electric, gas and pellet. Generally gas keeps a tighter range, pellets next and electric last.

Yeah, the smoke ring has no distinctive flavor itself (i've tried it a few times) and isn't actually from smoke IIRC, but is an indication that the meat has likely been cooked properly. Brisket w/ a smoke ring will generally taste better to most people than brisket that doesn't have it. Even without their seeing it.

Why? I wish I knew.