Customer Reviews

Brinkmann 810-7080-7 Gourmet Electric Smoker and Grill with Vinyl Cover, Black

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I spent a lot of time looking and researching smokers and decided to go with this one. I have smoked pretty much everything so far including salmon, trout, ribs, chicken leg quarters, steak, 15 lbs of pork loin (one piece), and much more. It is very easy to assemble and clean up. You are actually able to smoke up to 50 lbs of food at once, but so far my record has been about 30 lbs. One really nice thing about this smoker is that you are able to use the broth that is produced after the smoking inside the water pan, especially if you are smoking something for a long time (4 hrs), you can use the broth as a base for soup or stew. All the deliciousness drips down into it and produces excellent flavor. You are able to put vegetables like potatoes, carrots, etc into the water pan right away so that they cook in the broth right away, but I haven't tried that yet. However, I have made delicious stews with the base broth already.

My favorite wood so far has been hickory wood chunks. They are fairly big size. I use about 4 - 5 pieces. Make sure you soak them for about 30 minutes. I stay away from wood chips, because they are too small and burn out really fast.

I usually don't write reviews, but I was recommending this to my friend, and notices that this smoker has bad reviews. Most of them are for missing parts which doesn't reflect its performance. I had to go on here and tell everyone how much I love this smoker. I have used it about 20 times or so, and even brought it to friend's houses to smoke there. You won't be disappointed.

Another great thing about it, is you don't need to watch it like traditional smokers. You just prep everything, plug it in, and forget about it for the duration of cooking time.

One word of advice: Don't cover the steel grills with foil, you want the smoke to penetrate all the food. I did this a couple of times just to save on cleaning time, and the food ends ups steamed this way. Cleaning is easy either way.

Although I have previously owned a similar Brinkman Elcetric Smoker with a temp control dial and a thermometer, this new smoker appears to have been designed and built by people who have virtually no idea of the word craftsmanship. Besides having a missing part from the sealed plastic bag, I had to bend all three handles so I could line up the pre-drilled screw holes. I had to jerryrig a missing V clip--a support for the water pan. Because of all this, it took more than two hours to assemble. Shoddy workmanship, no temp gage, and no heat control make it a reach for me to even give this smoker two stars.

I like the Brinkman Electric Smoker because I dont have to keep checking the temp on it like I had to with my charcoal smoker. Once you plug it in it keeps the temp pretty constant. I just check it every hour to see if it needs more wood to make smoke. (Which it usually does).This one has 2 grill shelves to put food on and I have found it to be plenty of room. Only design flaw I feel is, the door on the front is suppose to be so you can check the wood status, and add more if needed. Which in theory sounds great, but you cant put the wood on the heating element so it must be placed very carefully around it. There isnt much room around the heating element and it takes some maneuvering so as not to burn yourself and not get the wood on the heating element. Would have given it 3 1/2 stars if I had the option.

This thing works pretty well. I smoked chicken on it first and it was great. Then I tried a whole brisket and it worked well also. I cooked the brisket (fourteen pounds) for fourteen hours. I added a few wood chips every couple of hours and I couldn't tell the difference between real fire smoked meat and electric. It doesn't get quite hot enough to grill a steak without throwing on chips to cause a little flame to come up. I will update this if there are any changes. We will see how long the electric element lasts. I suspect it will last long enough to be a good bargain.

The only problem is that the smoker was slightly bent when it arrived. I don't think this happened in shipping since the little access door on the side which was in with the screws and hardware was bent also. Is it a second? Probably. If you want to pay double the amount I paid ($109) then you can get an undamaged one although the damage is not enough to effect the performance or even notice unless you look really closely at it.

I've used this smoker maybe 6 times for a total of around 50 hours. On my last pork butt, the element died. Good riddance, because the element is way too hot for my liking and has no temp control. I'm thinking of dropping down to 750 watts or maybe 1000 watts but am open to suggestions.

I'd give this a better review had it come with a smaller element with a control on it. 1500 watts is too much power even in a Chicago winter, then when you factor in the additional heat from charcoal and wood the heat easily goes over 300º. Yes, I used a pan of water under the meat. I'm not an amateur!

I think the design of the unit is good and allows enough heat to escape but just be careful when you're using this and remember that the element is A LOT more powerful than needed.

EDIT: November, 2011

I've thrown the entire unit away (put it on the curb for scrappers actually). The electronic element died and I replaced it with one that died. Obviously after cooking in it for 10 hours you can't cover it immediately or put it away and if it rains the water just collects and rusts in the bottom.

I've since replaced it with a much cheaper and more effective solution: I build a wall with two paver bricks in my Weber kettle grill and put the coals in there, put a pan of water on the other side, put on the grate (I have one that's hinged for adding more coals), then put two more bricks over the hot side to prevent flare-ups. Put my meat over the pan and let 'er go. Cost me under $5 for this solution, doesn't require any additional grills on my patio and produces amazing smoked meats. My grill smells amazing now and I get great flavor even when I'm not smoking with it. Four standard bricks is all that's needed to transform a Weber Kettle (Silver series) into a smoker.

Have had mine for a couple of months now, got it at Lowes for a great price. I went with electric so I would have the consistent temp. I am still learning how to cook with it but have had some sucesses. The chicken and pork roasts have turned out very good. I am still far from good when I attempt ribs. The only issue I had when I got this smoker was the lid not fitting very well. I understand there needs to be a gap at the top for the smoke to escape but mine needed some gentle alteration with a rubber mallet. Overall a great product, I just need more practice, practice, practice...

1. Unit was incomplete -- middle rack supports missing from _sealed_ parts bag inside _sealed_ manufacturer carton. Had nine extra sets of screws and nuts, however, probably to make the bag pass a weight-test.

800 parts number only open during business hours on weekdays, and no way to order missing parts on the Brinkmann website. General impression is shoddy QC, and no attempt to compensate by making obtaining missing parts easy.

2. No temperature control, and unregulated temperature way high for true barbecue smoking (should be 210-230F, was somewhere north of 300F).

3. IF this unit had a thermostat, or some other intrinsic means of regulating the temperature, it might be OK. As it is, I am basically going to have to redesign it in order to make it minimally useful.

4. OTOH, it was cheap, ($59.95US at Lowe's) and even after enhancing it with extra parts (an oven thermostat) it will probably still cost less than than a "real" smoker.

IF this unit had possessed competent temperature control and all of its parts, it would be a 4-5 star bargain. As it is, it is pretty awful.

The smoker is much larger than it appears on the advertisement so make sure you have room for it. Mine came with the shipping box in shreds and the product was dented and damaged; I returned it and as usual, Amazon was very efficient in handling the process immediately.

We have a Brinkmann 810-7080-7 Gourmet Electric Smoker & Grill and when using it the first time we were really impressed with the end product, pork spareribs. We put a dry rub on the ribs including:
1=McCormick Grill Mates, Mesquite
2=Garlic Salt
3= Onion Salt
4=Lemon Pepper
We put blocks of Hickery wood around the electric coil in the bottom of the smoker. We are not sure if the ribs had either a Mesquite or Hickkery smoke flavor, but they were outstanding.