Electric Smoker arrives today

My Old Smokey electric smoker arrives today from Texas. It looks like a worthwhile addition to a busy lifestyle, so if there are any electric smoking aficionados out there, I'd appreciate whatever tips you might have.

hi bbires and welcome
i have 2 electric smokers that i use commercially and i and my health inspector love them!!!
as far as tips goes these have stood me well over the years;
1- buy a composition book and a pen. everytime time that you cook list at the very minimum, weight and type of meat,the wood used for smoking,the weight of the wood,your temperature setting,estimated time to completion and your results.
2- go to target and buy at least two taylor remote thermometers. before you even cook put the probes in your smoker along with the wood load that you use. put one up one the high rack and one on a lower rack. take your book out and note your start time and then note your units time to hit a set temp as that effects your total time. do it at least 3 times to get a good average and that way you will know whether your unit cooks "hot" or "cold". on one of my units in black sharpie is -15 and the other unit is -5. this means one unit cooks 15 degrees hot and the other cooks 5 degrees hot so i reduce my temp settings accordingly.
3-always use a remote thermo in the meat. electrics take a while to recover from any door openings and by using the remote you never have to open the door except to reload with wood.
these are your bare minimum starting points but here are a few other things to consider once you get going.
a) think about using pellets rather than wood chunks. with pellets you can custom blend your smoke by mixing a variety of woods easily. also you can throw an accurate amount of wood everytime and the pellets give a more consistant flavor in my experience. my own choice is bbqrs delight due to the help candy sue the owner offered us when we 1st started.
b) have fun. remember food is like a dog--show it any fear and it will bite you!!!
c) always keep you book--you may get off track but with a written record it is child's play to get back to where you went wrong and know why it was wrong.
again welcome to the electric world and have a good time!!!!
jack

Thanks, Mr. Prisonchef, that is superb advice, especially about keeping the book and the pellets. I'll go get the thermometers; I was wondering last night whether the lower rack would be hotter or the upper one. I did read another forum where someone's first attempt came out tasting like cigarettes, so I know to keep the wood at a minimum. Appreciate the help. I'm taking Old Smokey on the road for the 4th and can't wait to get started. The only unfortunate coincidence about my new old Smokey is that my wife (the lawyer) reminds me that "Old Smokey" was the name of the electric chair here in Tennessee.

bb,
my experience shows that the lower shelf is always much hotter. i think that this is because the elements and the wood is on the bottom. as the heat rises it is cooled by the meats on the shelves as it goes up making the top shelf the coolest EXCEPT (don't ya love it there is always the exzception!!) when i have a maximum 150 pound load going. as i get nearer max load all the shelves cook the same ( i think this is just a function of thermodynamics as there is always a certain amount of inertia in raising the temp of large amount of meat) so i never have to move meat if i always remember to put the biggest piece of meat on the bottom shelf frozen and fat side DOWN!!! the fat protects the meat during inital start up where i always get a 50 degree spike and have never figured a way around that so i just modified a technique or two and bingo!!!
jack
ps. if you want to see something really freaky just try this. get 2 pieces of meat same size and type. put one in frozen and one in defrosted on the same shelf. put a remote probe into both of them and fire off your smoker. at the 6 to 8 hour mark look at the remotes. the interior meat temp will be darned near identical!!! at the end check your yeild on both. the frozen one will be around 1 to 1 1/2% better.

bbires

Don't get discouraged if at first you don't succeed.

That is part of the fun, learning your smoker and it's quirks.

In addition to prison chef's list you may want to keep track of the weather in your notebook. It will help. I noticed during some of my first smokes, that it took longer than anticipated, of course the temp was -4. You may notice that certain weather affects your smoker a certain way.

also you may track rubs/marinade/brining times

it is your notebook take as many notes or as little notes as you want to.

MOST IMPORTANTLY THOUGH!!!!

Have Fun!

We cranked it up for the 4th. Put a pork butt on the bottom and a wealth of chicken legs on the top rack. The legs were truly superb, the butt was good, probably needed a longer soak in the marinade. Prisonchef, Old Smokey is a self-sealing electric smoker (nothing gets out unless you lift the lid), so I realized I won't be able to use the remote thermometers, though I may discover that a slightly open lid isn't a bad thing.

Being a self-sealer, it was amazing to me how much liquid accumulated in the grease drip pan. I was thinking, where did all of that come from. Also, the "handful of smoking chips" the manufacturer recommended give the meats a light, smoky flavor, but I want to experiment to get a little more smoke in there without turning it into "cigarette meat." I know that electric smoking is the lazy man's way, but it sure was fun and allowed us to do a lot of other things at a lakehouse at the same time. I appreciate your help and am recording my notes and ready for the next adventure.

Cajun, you were right about the temp, though in the other direction, since it must have been close to 90 in Tennessee yesterday.

bb,
glad everything went ok for you. if your grease drip pan is external just run your remotes up thru there. i do that with my 150's since my auxillary hood has been modified to set down close to the top vent. as you can see from your drip pan electrics cook a lot wetter then you think. as far as being the lazy man's way of doing it i just can't agree but then again i have to match the output of a pellet pooper against the electric so that is a whole nother can of worms. on the smoke taste you have found out what every owner of an electric has learned the hard way and to be brutally honest it is something that is poo-pooed on about every manufacturers forum (becareful what you say it just might get you a ban) they undersmoke and they undersmoke quite significantly and they cook wet and significantly wetter (and in that case you will have to figure out a way to increase the change of air thru the unit). the one method that i know for a fact works is frozen meat into a dead cold smoker with a max wood load (and some go even over max but i will never recommend that) and that wood load is refreshed once at the 4 hour mark. from everything that i have gathered once the external temp of the meat hits about 145-165f you are done on smoke uptake into the product. by starting with frozen beef or pork you buy yourself valuable time which increases the uptake. at the 6 to 8 hour mark the internal temp is the same as defrosted meat and there is no noticable increase in cooking time. so nope electrics ain't lazy if you are going after the best product. my experience has shown me that pellet poopers and stick burners are the lazy way to go but man dont tell that to the comp cooks. for fun do your next cook with ribs and see what kinda bark you get on those with an electric. do your best to match the bark that you like with another type of smoker with the electric. lazy nope not until ya got your notebook down. after that childs play!!!!!!!
jack
ps. all day long i use southern pride units at my other job. when i got my rig the transition to a pellet pooper was easy. the electric gave me 6 months of fits, and mostly in the areas of undersmoking and wet product, but now it is my work horse and all the pooper does is make biscuits and is only put into action for smoking when we have a really large order.

Much to ponder, chef, much to ponder. I'm going to try that frozen meat idea after I try some ribs. Do you ever smoke vegetables as well? I'm thinking of kind of a chicken, onions, and peppers smoked fajita thing.

to be honest i havent had any success with smoking veggies in the electric or for that matter in the pellet pooper since when it is run over 300f there simply is no smoke nor smoke taste and thats why biscuits and breads come out so well. for fajita myself i would just use a charcoal grill and let it rip. the oil from the veg and the fat from the meat hitting the coals is what is flavoring those.
jack