Posted: 3/3/2026 10:49:44 PM EDT
| My kids bought me a pit boss vertical electric smoker for Christmas. Im not completely happy with. It's simple. It's basically a stove element at the bottom and a fillable insert for pellets. My problem is full blast I cant get over 240 degrees on the thermometer top of the glass door. So basically I load it up and run it full blast until the pellets run out. Just under 2 hours. Then put it on trays with sauce and tinfoil into the oven at 275 for another hour. My steaks I get a iron skillet super hot on the top burner and sear each side about a minute to reach temp and texture. It would be nice to set it and forget it until its ready to eat. I think propane might have produced a higher temp? |
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You're right on all counts. Propane will get hotter, but needs smoke added to it like an electric smoker would since propane burns clean. If you want to actually smoke something you need charcoal, wood, or straight pellet burns. Now, strictly speaking, 240F should be more than enough for slow cooking nearly anything. And if you can get the smoke flavor in the first few hours that's enough, the fat displacement is what imparts the smoky flavor. After that it's just a matter of slow enough cooking to avoid drying the food out while getting to the appropriate temperature to render any connective tissue to gelatin and other compounds. |
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Smokers are generally for "low and slow" longer cooks. Like 8 hour pork shoulders and 13 hour briskets. 240F does seem kinda sucky compared to some other pellet smokers. Generally, the bigger they are, the lower their max temp and the longer it takes to get them up that high. Smaller pellet smokers will do 1000F in a reasonable amount of time and let you sear steaks. You're not gonna be doing that realistically on even medium sized ones. Make sure you're using half decent pellets in it. Thats the fuel. If you don't use something with enough BTUs, it can't produce any heat. |
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Originally Posted By Hayashi_Killian: You're right on all counts. Propane will get hotter, but needs smoke added to it like an electric smoker would since propane burns clean. If you want to actually smoke something you need charcoal, wood, or straight pellet burns. Now, strictly speaking, 240F should be more than enough for slow cooking nearly anything. And if you can get the smoke flavor in the first few hours that's enough, the fat displacement is what imparts the smoky flavor. After that it's just a matter of slow enough cooking to avoid drying the food out while getting to the appropriate temperature to render any connective tissue to gelatin and other compounds. That's pretty much where Im at. I messed with trying to block off some of the smoker for a smaller area. Helps a bit. Honestly, fill the chamber and it goes just over an hour and a half of good smoke 250degree. If I need more it goes in the oven or sear on cast iron skillet. I'm fairly content with that for now. |
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