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The Cookshack Smokette is a great little smoker, especially for busy people. It requires no tending, no stoking, no shifting the product around inside for even cooking. In fact, it works better if left alone after closing the door. The execution of the product is very good, and the company, Cookshack of Ponca City, OK, stands strongly behind its products. Let’s look at the Smokette and and how it operates.

Description: The Smokette is a smallish smoker oven with three interior racks, a 500 watt element and what I call the “wood house” in which chunks of your favorite wood are added. The unit is essentially a cube, 17″ wide, by roughly 20″ high by roughly 20″ deep. It is available with painted or stainless steel exterior panels, the interior is done in heavy stainless, and the walls are insulated for efficient operation. The temperature control is a rotary knob situated on the the rear of the top panel, and the temperature ranges from 100 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. The front door is substantial and solidly hung, and the latch is a compression latch similar to what you would find on a refrigerated semi trailer.

The cooker is quite short if not fitted on some kind of stand. The company offers an excellent stand for an additional charge. I made a nice one out of 2×4 lumber and I stained it a pleasing green color (from stain I found in the clearance bin at Lowe’s). The stand also gives you a nice place to slide a drip-pan rather than having it at floor level. Mine is right at my Labrador Retriever’s nose level, so I have to keep her from messing with it.

The rack system features two rack brackets on either side of the cooker that slide down over heavy pins. This is a nice touch, because you can remove not only the racks, but the brackets for cleaning. The racks fit tightly into place and are good quality. The cooker has a very small chimney right in the middle of the top panel, where a very small amount of heat and smoke wafts out during the cooking process.

Capacity: Fully loaded the Smokette can handle twenty lbs., but that would be solid chunks of product, say Boston butt or Brisket. Practically speaking, it can handle two 10 lbs briskets without a problem. In my experience it can handle five racks of ribs in a load, it can also easily handle four or five roasters. It bears mentioning that you may have to get creative in loading your Smokette, because the interior is fairly tight. Although the cooker ships with three racks, the only time you can use three is for very thin product less than three inches high, say chicken halves, ribs, or sausages. Fitting butts or briskets on to the three racks is a non-starter, you’ll have to take one out.

As a side note, the Smokette likes to be loaded, and does well with a full load. You can put just one thing in there, like a chicken, but it will actually cook faster with two. This is for reasons unknown, perhaps air volume or some other physical attribute.

Operation: The cooker uses a 500 watt heating element to provide the cooking power. For best results and easier cleaning, the manufacturer recommends lining the wood house lid and the bottom floor of the cooker with tin foil. You now add some wood of your choice to the wood chamber. You’ll only need a small amount, like two or three ounces. That is a very nice feature of the Smokette, you can store a little bit of hickory or mesquite nearby, and you’ll have enough to cook for the season.

Since the cooker starts cold, loading the meat in is easy. You’re also going to need to position a drip pan underneath when the product inside eventually starts to render out some of its fat. So you have your meat loaded, tin foil and drip pan in place and your wood loaded, now you simply close the door, plug it in, choose your desired cooking temperature and walk away. Go play golf, go throw the ball around with the kids, go fishing. When you get home, your food will have been cooking all the while you were gone.

Results: The Smokette does a very nice job on most things, and it is practically fool proof on things like brisket. It cooks with a very gentle heat, so you can let things go for a long time. I usually cook briskets at least an hour-a-pound. A load of ribs or chicken will be nicely done at around five or six hours. Also, due to the unit’s gentle nature, it does not dry out your food. It actually renders out less fat than cooking on a traditional pit. This is nice for things like sausage, that when treated roughly will shrivel up on the serving platter. They stay nice and plump coming out of the Smokette.

BBQ coming out of the Smokette will have a nice smokey flavor, and depending on the amount of smoke you apply, a pleasing bark. The food will not, however, have a red or pink smoke ring. Because fire is not the main source of cooking power, the chemical reaction is different than in a true, wood-fired pit. Still, the trade-off in convenience may be worth it for all but the most stringent BBQ purists. My friends usually don’t notice, and most of the time rave about the product I serve with so little effort!

Clean up is fast and easy, just remove the tin foil and wipe out with paper toweling. I use the heavy shop paper towels from Wal-Mart. No soap inside, please! If my racks start to show a serious build up, I’ll burn them off on the grate of my gas grill and give them a good wire brushing.

One nice benefit of the Smokette is that you can easily use it in a small area, say on an apartment balcony or small back porch. You could potentially use it indoors if you fabricated a chimney. As a matter of fact, grocery stores and butchers use similar products to the Smokette (but much larger) in their buildings to BBQ food on their premises, although I’m sure the manufacturer recommends against using the Smokette indoors.

Some users might wonder about the ability to cold smoke in the unit, but I have no practical experience with that. I believe the unit is a little hot to do things like cure bacon or sausage, but I’m sure you could smoke salmon in it.

The Smokette is a nice little unit, and if it isn’t quite big enough for your needs, the company offers larger home-use cookers. You can buy this cooker with confidence, because the company that makes it is a small company (not yet bought out by a larger competitor) that stands behind its product. They also offer an array of accessories and some very good companion products like rubs, sauces and spices.

Good cooking!

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