# searching for a new Smoker



## elpaton (Feb 8, 2011)

Well my name is Robert and have been Smoking for about a 1year. I started off easy with the big chief smoker and it has worked almost great but now i need a new one. I make alot of jerky almost every other day and do ribs almost every weekend. I need some thing that can with stand the cold and is in a nice price range.  like from $100-$350. IF any one got's some good ideas could you let me know.


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## bwsmith_2000 (Feb 8, 2011)

Two thoughts come to mind. First is the old reliable UDS. They're reasonable to build, very practical and have good capacity. The other suggestion is the Weber Smoky Mountain. It's a really good unit and will serve well for a long while.


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## elpaton (Feb 8, 2011)

Well my old smoker is very reliable except in the cold. In the cold it's hard to do jerky. I need some thing that will allow me to make lots of jerky all year round.I need some thing that has alot of racks.I was thinking about building one but not really sure where to start.


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## rbranstner (Feb 8, 2011)

I would also suggest a UDS but if you are looking for many many racks then the UDS may not be the way to go but I guess you could stack a bunch of trays on top of your grates or come up with something to make a UDS hold lots of jerky.


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## elpaton (Feb 8, 2011)

I used to buy about 50lbs of meat and i could turn it all to jerky in about 24hrs on a 60deg day. But in the 20 to 30deg weather it takes alomst 24hrs to do just one batch. I did think about Building a UDS But was not sure about it. Thats why i was looking at buying a smoker. but not sure.


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## SmokinAl (Feb 8, 2011)

I would suggest one of the many vertical smokers. If you are willing to try electric the Masterbuilt 40" will hold a lot of meat. It sells for $298 at Sam's.


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## elpaton (Feb 8, 2011)

The smoker i have now is electric.i have been looking at the Masterbuilt 40"  one for the last 2 weeks. but i have read some review that it has problems producing smoke at a low temp.


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## biteme7951 (Feb 8, 2011)

I Have a 40" masterbuilt electric and have only used the chip tray for it once when I needed a blast of smoke.  Buy one of the Amaz-N smoker trays and you will be very impressed with the amount of smoke you get with about a cup and a half of smoking dust. 6-8 hrs. No problem with holding temp when it's cold out.


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## SmokinAl (Feb 8, 2011)

Yep MES with the AMNS is like auto pilot. You can fill the AMNS, light it, set the temp on the MES. Put a brisket in & go to sleep. Wake up 8 hours later the MES is still at 225 & the AMNS is still producing TBS. The brisket is looking so good. The 2 of them together are like bread & butter.


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## beer-b-q (Feb 8, 2011)

Welcome to SMF, Glad to have you with us.
 

This is the place to learn, lots of good info and helpful friendly Members.
 

For those of you new to Smoking, be sure to check out *Jeff's 5 Day Smoking Basics eCourse*.

Click Here it's *"FREE"* ... 5 Day eCourseE


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## fpnmf (Feb 8, 2011)

Welcome!

I am an MES fan.

  Craig


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## porked (Feb 8, 2011)

Another MES fan here, coupled with an a-maze-n smoker. And by the way, welcome to SMF.


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## meateater (Feb 8, 2011)

Welcome to the SMF. Glad to have you here. Lots of good folks, great recipes and knowledge. Looking forward to your first qview. Yes on the UDS.


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## elpaton (Feb 10, 2011)

Well for now i bought the Master built 30" on e-bay for $150.00 with shipping. That's to get me started. I have been looking at building a UDS and i guess i do have 4 or 5 55gal barrels laying around at work i can use. Most the time we just use them for burn barrels. I need to lookat some more pics and come up with a plan on how to build a UDS but with using two drums. Thanks for your help guys


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## mballi3011 (Feb 10, 2011)

First off welcome Robert to SMF. You'll like it here cause there are alot of really good folks that would just love to help you with anything to do with smoking. Now we like having new folks here to give a new prospective on some of the ways we do things around here. Now if you are really new then I would suggest that you sign up fir the 5-day E-course it free and it will give you the basics on smoking and a few recipes too. Here's a link to it:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/list/127

then you will have a method to your newly found madness and believe me it will be a madness. Then when you start smoking things you will have to learn how to post the pictures / Qview 

here. So here's a link to a tutorial on how to post your Qview so we can see what your doing.

 http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/thread/82034/how-to-post-qview-to-smf

Now the next thing you have to do is run out and get something to smoke. Then just smoke it and if you have any questions just post  them here and we will answer all your questions that you might have. Oh yea there's no stupid questions we were all there in the beginning and we just really like to help others enjoy the fabulous smoked foods that we do. So again

Welcome to Your New Addiction  

GO GATORS


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## metal man (Feb 10, 2011)

Welcome to SMF.

Yep now that you have the 30"MES it would be nice to have the UDS as well.  I don't have a UDS but i do have a two charcoal smokers along  with a 40" MES. Its nice having both.


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## tjohnson (Feb 10, 2011)

Buy a 40" MES at SAMS for $298 and build a UDS = Best Of Both Worlds

Todd


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## elpaton (Feb 11, 2011)

I was looking at the 40" MES at Sam's online cause we dont have a Sam's anywhere close by. Also i dont have a membership and didnt want to pay $50.00 for one year if all i was going to do was buy 1 thing. the 40" MES looks very nice and i bet i could of did alot of jerky with it. Would it be better to build a smoke house or a double barrel UDS to smoke loks of jerky. The main things i do alot of are Jerky and Ribs. Just talking about them is making my hungry now.


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## elpaton (Feb 14, 2011)

Well i got my new MES 30" and it looks nice from the out side but i was sad when i opened it. I racks are alot smaller than my Big Chief. and i am went from 5 racks to 4. I am thinking of a way to add racks. i wonder has anyone tried to weld on this unit?  cause i am thinking about doing some welding and adding another 3 to 4 racks. Any kind of help would be nice.


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## daveomak (Feb 14, 2011)

Elpaton, My first smoker was a Totem. 3 racks. I found some cooling racks that were small enough to fit in it. I fashioned hooks to hang racks

from the 2 upper racks that came with the unit. Five racks was enough for jerky and trout etc. I hung them so the spacing was equidistant

between the original racks. The hooks were c-shaped. 3 hooks per shelf. Auto adjusting that way. Tried 4 hooks. Didn't work.


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## tyotrain (Feb 14, 2011)

Welcome to SMF.. Cant go wrong with a WSM they are great smoker and work well in the cold.


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## biteme7951 (Feb 15, 2011)

DaveOmak said:


> Elpaton, My first smoker was a Totem. 3 racks. I found some cooling racks that were small enough to fit in it. I fashioned hooks to hang racks
> 
> from the 2 upper racks that came with the unit. Five racks was enough for jerky and trout etc. I hung them so the spacing was equidistant
> 
> between the original racks. The hooks were c-shaped. 3 hooks per shelf. Auto adjusting that way. Tried 4 hooks. Didn't work.


I also have modified my MES rack system by using large S-hooks to adjust the rack spacing based on meat size (4 turkeys would not fit in the MES 40 without the mod), or to add additional racks for jerky.  You could also make some clips out of metal that will hang down from the lower rail of the shelf racks to support additional racks. You could also bend up some different length sets of clips for more options in spacing. If you look closely at my profile pic you will see the S-hooks in action.


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## elpaton (Feb 15, 2011)

Well i took a good long look at the inside and it will be very easy to mod. I just need to order some extra racks first. I was going to Smoke today but it started to rain out side again. Just bad luck i tell you. I went and bout some Salmon last night. This will be my first time smoking Salmon hope it turns out good.


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