# Brinkman Trailmaster Vertical Pellet Smoker



## scsowi (Sep 7, 2014)

so i recently bought one of these from BJ's wholesale. seemed pretty well put together and other than some issues with the actual hardware the smoker itself seems pretty well built. the only real issue i think i have with the construction is the door could have a better seal im working on that as we speak other than that i have no complaints just some questions if anyone else has purchased one. i have been smoking for years on a brinkman R2 smoker so this is a totally different ( holy cow way easier) setup. i smoked some ribs on it first thing after i seasoned it. they turned out pretty good. i undercooked them a bit as i apparenlty didn't pay close attention to the internal temp it smoked around 145 all day. which brings me to my first two questions. it mentions a water tray in the manual however i cannot get brinkman to reply or call me back and tell me if one is suppose to be there or not and secondly on the smoker setting it has p1-p8. the manual says p1 is the lowest setting and p8 is highest however seems that the lower the number the hotter the smoker gets which is how i sort of undercooked my ribs they cooked at 140-145 for 7 hours and never got hot enough to cook the fat etc.. down. i have to say i am very impressed after it starts up the way they tell you to it get's up to about 225 for about 7-8 minutes then settled right down to 145 and held that temp within 5 degrees all day. today i smoked a pork butt. learning what i did last time i set the temp control to p2 and it hovered aroudn 150-155 for about 10 hours the last hour i turned it up to 225 and got the butt up to 155 meat temp and it was amazing! my question is can anyone else weigh in on there findings on the smoke settings or is everyone else just using the 180 degree setting which while playing around with is seems to hold more like 170-175.













smoker.jpg



__ scsowi
__ Sep 7, 2014


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## surf2di4 (Sep 27, 2014)

I can't answer about the controller. but you should not eat anything that "COOKED" at only 140'. just hot enough to heat up any bacteria.

everything I have ever read is you want to get out of that temp zone as quickly as possible.

Karl


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## jtrainor56 (Sep 28, 2014)

Your meat temps are kind of low, I usually cook a pork butt to 201* to 205* to pull or 180* to slice. Ribs I have never checked the temps but I assume they should be in the 195* range when done. I have a Yoder pellet smoker and usually smoke around 250*. Last time I smoked two 10 pounders that took 11 hours to get to temp.


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