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Product Description
Amazon.com Review
No more tending the coals every hour when smoking meats; Meco's Combo Water Smoker offers optimal control, longer cook time, and less monitoring than traditional charcoal smokers. Perfect for smoking chicken, fish, and other meats to a savory finish, the combo smoker coils boil water to produce steam and burn wood chips to produce smoke that, together, more efficiently penetrate and flavor meats while they cook. The combo smoker features a removable thermostat control with low, medium, and high settings for smoking just about anything, from thin strips of sockeye to thick beef briskets. The smoker plugs into standard household outlets and converts quickly into an electric, lock-and-go, portable grill. Two nickel-plated, 15-1/2-inch cooking grids let you cook at different levels. With 351 square inches of cooking surface, there's room to smoke nearly 50 pounds of meat at once. A porcelain-glazed pan holds 5-1/2 quarts of water to last up to five hours for extended smoking operations. Sliding access doors make it easy to check water levels and add more if necessary. Meco designed this smoker so that you can add wood and water without even removing the cover, so heat loss is minimal and meats are tender. A 1500-watt heating element ensures even heat distribution from top to bottom. Heat-resistant wood handles on the sides and hood mean easy transport and monitoring. And, the grids inside are equipped with durable handles, so there's no messy oven mitt to clean afterward! --Brian Olson
Product Description
Satin Black Electric Water Smoker, Two 15.5 diameter Grids, built-in heat indicator with two access doors.
Important Information
Safety Information
For outdoor use, only.
Directions
In The Box
For outdoor use, only.
Directions
In The Box
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
95 of 97 people found the following review helpful
First, let me say that my husband and I are smoker morons - we need a book titled 'Smokers for Dummies'. But, we have always wanted a smoker, and in researching the electric version of this little unit, I found lots of people were happy with it. I also noticed that it can be converted to charcoal (or vice versa for the charcoal unit) with a conversion kit available from the manufacturer. For the charcoal version, I was concerned about having to watch the coals for hours to assure proper heat, and being able to control the 220 degree temperature which is perfect for smoking. After using this little puppy for the first time, I am quite impressed with it. The thermostat allows for constant temperature control, and allows you to go about your life instead of baby sitting a smoker all day.
The large box arrived with lots of parts, but was assembled in about an hour - the instructions were very good. We immediately put a beef brisket into the unit, turned it on, and added mesquite chunks. The unit came with some hickory chumks to get you started, but we will use those later I presume. The neighborhood smelled like a BBQ pit, and everyone came to see what was going on. Talk about a make-shift party! The 4.5 pound brisket took around 4 hours to cook. Hindsite, I would have brined the brisket prior to smoking it to help it retain more moisture, but it was not that dry at the end. A little BBQ sauce on the cooked meat handled that problem.
The unit recommends using wood chunks, not chips. It tells you to put the chunks on top of the electric coils. Not only did I find this difficult to do (balance the wood on the electric coils) but I found that even after soaking the chunks for a hour or more, I had to replace them every hour or so (I used 2 each time). They tended to burn up, and I suspect that is why the brisket was a bit dry (that, and I bought the brisket at a super market near-by who sells 'select' meat, so there was little if any marbling in the meat).
But the taste and the flavor of the brisket was great. Lots of mesquite smoke flavor. We sliced it very thin (as I had said, the meat had little marbling, so tenderness was not the poor brisket's forte). Added some BBQ sauce, and served it up with potatoes, beans and corn bread. As good as any high priced BBQ pit in the area. I was thoroughly pleased.
My one neighbor was shocked that we would purchase an electric version of this unit. He has a charcoal one. He said 'You will miss all of the the flavor with electric! Why not just steam the meat?'. Well, he ate those words right after he ate some of the brisket. We actually got more flavor out of this unit than he gets from his charcoal one because it is difficult to add wood to his, and simple to add it to this one! I would challenge anyone who says you can not get flavor from an electric smoker if you use wood to flavor the meat.
On the positive side of this unit: Great flavor, simple to assemble (allow an hour and have a screw driver and a pliers ready), easy to use (no replacing charcoal), the water container is 5.5 quarts - enough for 5 hours of smoking, doors to add additional wood or water as needed, the bullet shape is attractive on the patio, it has a thermostat and a temperature gauge (although the settings are only low/medium/high and warm/ideal/hot respectively this seems to be adequate), easy to clean, you can add wood and water without removing the cover or meat - heat loss is minimal, .
On the negative side of this unit: There are some gaps where the lid sits on the top of the unit so some smoke is lost (on the plus side, this attracts curious neighbors!), the instructions are for the charcoal version - not the electric one - you are pretty much on your own, it tends to run a bit hot so once heated I would recommend turning the control to 'medium-high' to continue the cooking and maintain that 220 degree temperature, it burned up the wood chunks instead of allowing them to smolder - decreasing the temperature should help this some, cleaning the bottom bowl requires loosening the electric element to remove the pan - although cleaning this is not necessary each time you use it, some of the body parts were a bit bent when it arrived even though the box was fine - a pliers fixed this problem.
I would recommend this unit to even a novice smoker. We had great success with this unit and our first smoking episode, and plan to use it throughout the year for smoking beef, pork, fish and fowl. It also has instructions for smoking cheese and nuts if that is your liking.
When smoking, I recommending having a pair of tongs to add wood to the fire if you like a heavy smoke taste - makes it easier adding the wood through the available door.
Gee, I wonder what smoked beer would taste like?
The large box arrived with lots of parts, but was assembled in about an hour - the instructions were very good. We immediately put a beef brisket into the unit, turned it on, and added mesquite chunks. The unit came with some hickory chumks to get you started, but we will use those later I presume. The neighborhood smelled like a BBQ pit, and everyone came to see what was going on. Talk about a make-shift party! The 4.5 pound brisket took around 4 hours to cook. Hindsite, I would have brined the brisket prior to smoking it to help it retain more moisture, but it was not that dry at the end. A little BBQ sauce on the cooked meat handled that problem.
The unit recommends using wood chunks, not chips. It tells you to put the chunks on top of the electric coils. Not only did I find this difficult to do (balance the wood on the electric coils) but I found that even after soaking the chunks for a hour or more, I had to replace them every hour or so (I used 2 each time). They tended to burn up, and I suspect that is why the brisket was a bit dry (that, and I bought the brisket at a super market near-by who sells 'select' meat, so there was little if any marbling in the meat).
But the taste and the flavor of the brisket was great. Lots of mesquite smoke flavor. We sliced it very thin (as I had said, the meat had little marbling, so tenderness was not the poor brisket's forte). Added some BBQ sauce, and served it up with potatoes, beans and corn bread. As good as any high priced BBQ pit in the area. I was thoroughly pleased.
My one neighbor was shocked that we would purchase an electric version of this unit. He has a charcoal one. He said 'You will miss all of the the flavor with electric! Why not just steam the meat?'. Well, he ate those words right after he ate some of the brisket. We actually got more flavor out of this unit than he gets from his charcoal one because it is difficult to add wood to his, and simple to add it to this one! I would challenge anyone who says you can not get flavor from an electric smoker if you use wood to flavor the meat.
On the positive side of this unit: Great flavor, simple to assemble (allow an hour and have a screw driver and a pliers ready), easy to use (no replacing charcoal), the water container is 5.5 quarts - enough for 5 hours of smoking, doors to add additional wood or water as needed, the bullet shape is attractive on the patio, it has a thermostat and a temperature gauge (although the settings are only low/medium/high and warm/ideal/hot respectively this seems to be adequate), easy to clean, you can add wood and water without removing the cover or meat - heat loss is minimal, .
On the negative side of this unit: There are some gaps where the lid sits on the top of the unit so some smoke is lost (on the plus side, this attracts curious neighbors!), the instructions are for the charcoal version - not the electric one - you are pretty much on your own, it tends to run a bit hot so once heated I would recommend turning the control to 'medium-high' to continue the cooking and maintain that 220 degree temperature, it burned up the wood chunks instead of allowing them to smolder - decreasing the temperature should help this some, cleaning the bottom bowl requires loosening the electric element to remove the pan - although cleaning this is not necessary each time you use it, some of the body parts were a bit bent when it arrived even though the box was fine - a pliers fixed this problem.
I would recommend this unit to even a novice smoker. We had great success with this unit and our first smoking episode, and plan to use it throughout the year for smoking beef, pork, fish and fowl. It also has instructions for smoking cheese and nuts if that is your liking.
When smoking, I recommending having a pair of tongs to add wood to the fire if you like a heavy smoke taste - makes it easier adding the wood through the available door.
Gee, I wonder what smoked beer would taste like?
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
I saw the Cooks Illustrated recommendation for this and bought one. I spent an entire summer playing with spice rubs and making bbq sauces from scratch and learning how to bbq. The key is to keep the heat between 210 and 230 with a chunk of wood every now and then (not mesquite - too strong. I use hickory, oak or apple depending on what I can find.) This smoker rocks because you turn it up all of the way, close the doors and it stays in that temperature range. Just did ribs and brisket several weeks ago, and people raved. (If you do brisket, get a full brisket with the point and flat end and a nice layer of fat on the top - the fat will peel off once you're done but the meat will be moist and delicious. It's best if you eat it within the hour or so after you take it off.) If I know I'm going load it with say too much meat (if you put a vertical rib rack on each grill <there are two in a typical water smoker> you can load it with slabs of ribs), I just add 6 charcoal pieces on the electric coil 1/2 hr before I put all of the meat in and it gets the temp up to 220 faster real quick. OTHER POINTS: Get a Weber grill thermometer (the one with a nice square at the 220 temp) and drop it in the top vent so you can see actual numbers; the Meco thermometer in the front doesn't provide actual temperature which makes you wonder why it's there. Also, don't worry if you stack the pieces and there are slight gaps. It will still keep the right temp. I've only worried about this lack of perfect seal when I've bbq'd during a freezing Chicago winter, and then I just add a little more charcoal and wrapped aluminum foil around where the top meets the base to keep the heat in, and it worked fine. Awesome smoker for the price. Get an electric (not charcoal-too much work) water smoker - it's easy and this one nails the right temperature (which really is the most important part of bbqin') consistently.
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I had never smoked before making this purchase. My primary goal was to smoke fish and thus far, I have used it 3 times to make both smoked salmon and talapia. The smoker was relatively easy to assemble (took about an hour.) The instructions are adequate, but not much as far as recipies go. I went to the internet (salmonuniversity.com was a great resource, with step-by-step instructions on how to brine, prepare, smoke, and store the fish.) I can smoke about 6 pounds of salmon in about 2.5 - 3 hours. The result is fantastic and comparable to smoked fish I've had in restaurants. My family, friends, and neighbors love it too. Cleanup of the smoker takes about 10 minutes, which isn't too bad. The construction of the smoker is pretty sturdy and I have not noticed any paint peeling as had been described with the Char-Broil smoker. I haven't tried ribs yet, but that's next on my list. I would definitely buy this smoker again.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Horrible
I got my smoker in the mail and the box was beat up an the smoker was bent out of shape. And the heating coil didn't work properly. I don't reccomend this product at all.
Published 2 months ago by Me
Fair weather smoker
Wasn't too hard to assemble. Body was manufactured a little tweeked, the top dome has to be on just right or there is a gap. It does a pretty good job. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Tom
MISSING PARTS, SELLER WON'T RETURN CALLS/EMAILS
I am very disappointed in this product. There were missing parts to make this unit unuseable and I immediately contacted the seller and they did not contact me back. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Sienna_AZ
Great outdoor smoker
This is the best electric smoker at a great price. I have smoked all kinds of meats on this grill and the results are great. It is so easy to use you cannot go wrong. Read more
Published 4 months ago by sugarlips
Works OK, construction pretty flimsy
Had to be reshipped, as first one was so out of round it couldn't be fit together. The real trick to cooking is marinate or brine and smoke.. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Marge B
Grill smoker
The unit could seal better, and it came a little banged up. However the metal was weak enough to reshape it back to near its original form. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Carol A. Marshall
Okay For First Few Years But Doesn't Hold Up
We've had this smoker right at seven years now and today if finally stopped completely. Performance in the last couple years has been so-so with finding a satisfactory heat... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Roger M
Great smoker
I did alot of research when I was looking for a electric smoker. This one seemed to have better reviews compared to others I looked at. Read more
Published 9 months ago by BrutalMix
Smoker
I purchased this for my dad for Father's Day. It was easy to put together he said and he loves it!
Published 10 months ago by bic
Faulty Rheostat Design
I have had this smoker for 8 years. The tank and operation is convenient and does a good job smoking food. The electric element however, i.e. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Mark Vlosky
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