got a used smoker to start me off.

[aitkenkingfish]

havnt smoked in years had a little chief back then. I picked up a used masterchef electric smoker & tried to do some smoking on sunday. It is producing very little smoke my little chief smoked up a storm not sure if im doing somthing wrong. seems the temp is off i used my turkey gauge figurd the electric gauge is 75 degrees off. so at 225 the temp is actually 150 but very little smoke?

 

[pignit]

Your gonna find that a good temp probe to monitor your rack temp is essential in turning out good food. You can't get anywhere until your know what your cooking temp is. You need to be in the range of 225 for cooking almost anything. If the smoker is actually only getting to 150 at rack temp your not hot enough to get your food out of the danger zone. That may be your lack of smoke problem too.

 

[meat hunter]

Just what piginit said. Get yourself a good reliable accurate thermometer. You cant do it right with out the right basic tools. Not to mention the danger temp zone for the food. Dont want anyone getting sick. Make sure you stop by roll call and say hello, introduce yourself to all of us, tell us about your smoking exp, where your from and so on. Glad to have you with us, and make sure to take some pics and post them of your smokes for all to see.

 

[beer-b-q]

First Off, Welcome to the forum, be sure to stop in the Roll Call thead and properly introduce yourself to everyone.

Second Never trust the thermometers that come on smokers, always get a good probe like PignIt and Meat Hunter said

 

[aitkenkingfish]

well my beef jerky directions said 140 degrees is that not right?

 

[pignit]

Your first post didn't say you were doin jerky. Sorry, I didn't understand. I like to dry my jerky at 140 to 165 degrees. For safety sake it should be cured. A lot of smokers won't produce smoke at 140 or 150 degrees. I have a smoke daddy to generate smoke when I'm doing a batch of jerky.

 

[mballi3011]

I to have a problem of not very much smoke from my wood. Then I got a real thermometer and found out that my smoker was hardly warm. Never trust the thermo gauge that comes with your smoker. Even when you buy a thermometer test it first and see if it's reading correctly. Good luck and Happy smoking.